Better shadows over colors

[sallybode]

The default drop shadow is black and if your background is 100% red in (CMYK that is 100% yellow, 100% magenta, 0% cyan and 0% black) to saturate the shadow so the black does not look anemic but gives you a rich dark shadow do this: Click into setting a custom shadow color and make that shadow 100% yellow, 100% magenta, 0% cyan and 100% black). This will give you a rich looking shadow that looks right instead of ... "What the hell happened to my nice shadow?" Now it will look alright on the screen until you make a .pdf out of it, but the .pdf will definitely look weak for the shadow unless you do this and in this case the .pdf will be showing you a pretty good facsimilie of how your document will print. So any time you put a shadow over color, you can use the formula of matching the color you are using a shadow with and adding 100% black. However, if your shadow is falling across various different colors, you would not want to do this. In the case of a multi-colored background, it works best to use RGB colors and the use a R-0%, G-0%, B-0% shadow. It works well because it appears to seep into the color, the process of making the .pdf can change all your RGB elements to CMYK for printing. I usually don't design in RGB because I work in print all the time, but it does have its uses.