Creating faded drop shadows in flexi 8.6

[StickyBoyz]

Good afternoon,

I am new to Flexi and am trying to make a blurred/faded drop shadow and I can't find the right tool. I used to use Adobe Illustrator and all I had to do was go to effects and drop shadow and bam it was done. It gave me options on how much of a fade I wanted and the color. Is there a way I can do it through Flexi, I see fades like this all day long. I tried saving it as an .ai and .eps and opening it in Flexi but it distorts it a bit so I just want to create it in Flexi if I can.

Any suggestions?

 

[P Wagner]

I recall seeing a tutorial on this, possibly on this site.

The gist of it was to create the vector shadow (drop/ block etc), rasterize the shadow, and then use a blur to diffuse the edges of the shadow.

 

[StickyBoyz]

Thanks for the help.

That just seems like way to much work compared to Adobe when all you need to do is click 2 buttons.

Thanks and anyone else have a better idea please inform me.

 

[bob]

Thanks for the help.

That just seems like way to much work compared to Adobe when all you need to do is click 2 buttons.

Thanks and anyone else have a better idea please inform me.

Regardless of just how many buttons you might have to invoke in some other package, there is no real way to do an Adobe/Corel style faded drop shadow in Flexi. The method mentioned above produces rather unsatisfactory results.

Flexi primarily deals in vector objects and provides limited and rather primitive tools for handling bitmaps. Faded drop shadows are, by definition, bitmaps and are beyond the meager capabilities provided by Flexi.

 

[Tharnpheffa]

Can't you just export and open in Illustrator to do the drop shadow?

 

[StickyBoyz]

Yeah but I RIP out of Flexi so how would that work?

 

[Ron Helliar]

Flexi's production manager should allow you to rip an EPS/tiff/jpg/etc. from
just about any program that can create one. Embedding/opening it in
Flexi and then ripping is just asking for color management issues.

 

[P Wagner]

Regardless of just how many buttons you might have to invoke in some other package, there is no real way to do an Adobe/Corel style faded drop shadow in Flexi. The method mentioned above produces rather unsatisfactory results.

Flexi primarily deals in vector objects and provides limited and rather primitive tools for handling bitmaps. Faded drop shadows are, by definition, bitmaps and are beyond the meager capabilities provided by Flexi.

I agree with Bob that the method I describe above does not produce results that are equivalent to using Illustrator or even CorelDRAW, however the OP was looking for a Flexi-centric approach, and that is what I provided.

 

[tooserious]

You get better results printing directly froman ai file to Production Manager if it is sized properly etc.....the colors and such stay great!!!!!!

 

[Compilla]

Flexi primarily deals in vector objects and provides limited and rather primitive tools for handling bitmaps. Faded drop shadows are, by definition, bitmaps and are beyond the meager capabilities provided by Flexi.

AWESOME BOB!

I love the way you word it!

:ROFLMAO:

 

[SignosaurusRex]

This may be of some help.

 

[signgal]

Hey! You dissin' Flexi, Punk?! j/k

you can also grab the shadow and do the millions of steps dealio in the inline box and gradiate from black to grey but will probably not be happy with those results either. Flexi rocks for sign design, not graphics... look at it that way.

For what it's worth, I create in photoshop, save as a .tif and print from Flexi all the time.

 

[SignosaurusRex]

...ooops....I guess I should have looked at the dates

 

[signgal]

no, i found it helpful. Thanks Rex

 

[Graphics2u]

This may be of some help.

I've done this several times in flexi and it will work. Only trouble is when you're trying to apply the shadow over another background. It will only work with a solid color background.
So if you need to overlay text on a bitmap image and want to apply a faded shadow use something other than Flexi.

Great File Rex! Thanks!