Mitzrah's Get IT Right Column!! Making Link Plates - Section 4 Updated : Monday, August 03, 1998

Dear budding web masters!

Using the knowledge in section 1, I want you to change your background and foreground colours to more "bright" variants, remember that our first 2 colours which are black and white when merged are blackish so brighter colours such as yellow, bright orange or cyan would be a good one to use. For my plate, I chose my favourite colours, golden yellow and golden brown, well they are my fave colours so I called them whatever I liked hehe!

1. Access the cutout tool by clicking on Image -- Effects -- Cutout or you can use the shortcut ALT + I, T, U. The cutout dialogue box is something like so:
2. Set the interior colour as the background colour and the shadow colour as the foreground colour. Next, adjust the opacity of the picture, the small window on the right will adjust accordingly to your chosen settings. Play around with the Blur effect also.
3. The offset must also be adjusted, but it really depends on you how you want things to look like. Play with the bars and colours until you are happy with what you have done. Once happy, click OK!
4. The image now looks slightly better but lacks the stand out effect! So let's use the drop shadow tool to give it some body.
5. Access the drop shadow tool via the menu bar - Image -- Effects -- Drop Shadow or using the short cut ALT + I, T, D.
6. A new dialogue box will greet you!.
7. I found that black is a good colour for us to use because it cuts into the image and produces quite a nice shadow 3D text effect. I also wanted it to be quite dark so I set the opacity to about 89 and I don't want much blurring as it may ruin the plate.
8. It is also advisable to play around with the vertical and horizontal offsets and keep a good eye out on the preview window. If you don't like it, adjust the settings until you do.
9. Click OK when happy! We are almost finished!
10. If things turned out according to what we want, the finished product will be something like this :
11. You can now save your work :) and have a coffee break ya! Before you make your other buttons of course hehe!

Notes from Alex:

If you found my guidance helpful, please drop a note by my guestbook! So I know that you have dropped by and benefitted from my efforts, it took me quite sometime to get these tutorial up! Click on home and then SIGN GUESTBOOK! I will also visit your homepage and will sign your guestbook too.

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