How to Create a Drop Shadow in Flash MX

While the latest versions of Flash have plenty of nifty automatic effects, many of us are still using older versions of Flash. There are ways to create those effects manually, though. One such effect is a quick and easy drop shadow.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• A working installation of Flash MX or lower.

1. Like a real shadow, a digital drop shadow is basically just a copy of the shadowed shape in silhouette. To start creating your drop shadow, select the shape that you want to shadow and click Edit->Copy (PC shortcut Ctrl+C).

2. On the Flash layers panel, click the button to create a new layer above the one you're working on; the new layer will contain your shape, while the layer underneath will become the shadow layer.

3. While on the new layer, select Edit->Paste in Place (PC shortcut Ctrl+Shift+V).

4. Click the lock icon on the new layer to make sure that you don't accidentally edit it while working on the shadow layer.

5. If your shape is already just a solid fill, not a symbol or text, then skip to step 7. If you're working with a symbol or text, click Modify->Break Apart (PC shortcut Ctrl+B).

6. Continue breaking apart the various parts of the shape until they're all plain fills and strokes, without any blue outlines to indicate symbols or text.

7. Now you'll want to fill everything with a solid grey. You can do this by either selecting a grey shade from the Color Picker while everything's selected (this will auto-fill) or by using the Paint Bucket tool to manually fill everything in.

8. Optionally, you can use the Color Mixer panel to adjust the opacity of the fill; this is especially effective if your shadow will be overlapping other shapes, as it will be seen as semi-translucent and darkening those other shapes.

9. The last step to making a drop shadow is to make sure that all parts of the shadow are selected before moving it so that it's visible just beyond the edges of the main shape; you can do this either by nudging with the arrow keys or by dragging and dropping with the mouse.

Tips & Warnings

• Consider your light source when positioning the fill on your shadow layer. If the imagined light source is coming from above and to the left of the shape, you should position your shadow layer to the right and a little below the shape. If your light source is below and to the right, your shadow would be positioned to the left and a little above the shape. The shadow is in direct opposition to the imagined location of the light.
• The farther you move your shadow from the shape that it's shadowing, the farther that shape will seem from the background/objects that it's overlapping.