Jocelyn,
You can’t change the colour in PSE …
One workaound for the drop shadow is instead of using the drop shadow style just duplicate the item you want to add a drop shadow to. Fill it with the colour you want the drop shadow to be, add some gaussian blur, move it into place and reduce the opacity level.
Wendy
Jocelyn,
Here are 2 ways to create text outer glow:
method 1 (similar to Wendy’s)
1. Create a copy of the text layer.
2. On lower text layer change color to the glow.
3. Apply gaussian blur to lower layer. The color may not be strong enough. Make copies of blurred layer. Each time the color will be more saturated.
4. Merge down the blur layers.
method 2
1. Ctrl-click text layer to select the text.
2. Select->Modify->Expand, choose a number in relation to the font size.
3. Select->Feather. Pick large number to get glow effect.
4. Create new layer under the type layer, fill with glow color.
Thanks. I’ll try it today.
I tried this method but wasn’t overly thrilled with the results. My partner has photoshop and obviously has a lot more options than I do in PSE. Anyway, I noticed some other comments regarding PhotoShop the missing elements. Does anyone have experience with knowing if this software would allow me to change the drop shadow or outer glow color in a 1 step (maybe 2) procedure? If someone has tried it and it works better than the duplicating of the text layer, etc. then I would like to hear the feedback and will purchase it.
Jocelyn,
Do you mean "The Missing Styles"? If so, this can be purchased on eBay. It has a large selection of Outer Glows and Drop Shadows and lots more. I don’t think you can edit the color in a particular style, but there are are many styles of different colors so you probably will find one you need. For example there are 52 Outer Glow styles of all kinds of colors.
Yes, that is what I meant – ‘The Missing Styles’. Is it a fairly straight forward to use? I found it on ebay and it seems like it would fulfill most of what I am looking for. I think I will try it. Thanks for your help.
Also, is there a way to adjust the character spacing? Certain fonts either add too much space or cram the letters too close.
Jocelyn,
Kerning isn’t available in Elements … you need the full version of Photoshop for that. A workaround is to do each letter on its own layer and then manually adjust the spacing … OK if there is only a little text but not really viable for a lot. 🙁
Wendy
Thanks. I didn’t think it was possible but thought someone might have found a way or additional software.
Thanks. You guys have been so helpful – I have not asked for help in one of these forums before (I didn’t think anyone would help). I wish I knew more about the program so I could add my 2 bits but I think that will be a while before that happens.
Jocelyn, you asked if "The Missing Styles" is easy to use. It is just a set of files (suffix .asl) which you copy to your PSE Styles directory. You then access them in the same manner as the your other PSE styles. So there is really no learning curve or anything else special you have to do.
