Can I change the angle of drop shadows in Indesign

[C***@adobeforums.com]

Thanks Jean-Marc Lévy, it seems so obvious now! Thanks for replying.

Cheers,
Caroline

[S***@adobeforums.com]

I don't think Bob's comment is clear or relavent (what do PDFs have to do with it?). I had this happen before. I rotated a group of objects (to manually make a calendar imposition) and the shadows stayed in thier orientation relative to the page, not the items. I wanted them to stay in their orientation relative to the object, not the page. I think this might be a good preference to include in the next version, sort of like Photoshop's "use global angle" or a checkbox "lock shadow angle relative to object orientation".

[unknown]

Post by S***@adobeforums.com
what do PDFs have to do with it?

Everything. By creating a PDF and imposing that you can rotate the page
at will and the drop shadow will stay exactly where you want it on the page.

That said, I agree that a command to link the shadow to the object as
opposed the to page is a good idea.

Bob

[Martin Gouw]

And... when using pdf files to impose, you can always make corrections or changes to the original document whitout working 'upside down'. Just make a new pdf and update the link...

martin

[J***@adobeforums.com]

BTW Illustrator does the same thing if the shadow is an effect.

As a filter you end up with an embedded raster grouped with the object that will rotate as one would expect.

Many of us have been bit by this, including me.

Whether or not it should be an use option might be moot if you know about it and how to work around it.

However, intuitively, the unknowing user would naturally expect the shadow to maintain the original orientation to the object after rotation... not to the page.

Speaking of intuitive: A coworker of mine got bit by ungrouping a ID group to which a drop shadow had been applied at the group level, and he did not notice that the shadow disappeared.

Perfectly logical... no group, no shadow. But one might hope for a warning dialog about group effects that will be lost...

[AlFerrari]

This is just one more reason for using PDFs.




Bob,

The same can also be said for postscript or eps. All three can be rotated as if snapshots of the page, which is what they are after all. Sure, the transparency would have to be flattened, but that's no bigie since we are talking about the whole page.

Al

[unknown]

Agreed, but the point is, that when you really think about drop shadows
the behavior is correct.

Bob

[R***@adobeforums.com]

Agreed, but the point is, that when you really think about drop shadows
the behavior is correct.




I don't agree with that statement. We're not talking about shadows in nature. We're talking about shadows relative to objects. One of my first jobs in ID was a table tent card. Imagine my stunned surprise when I saw that one side had correct shadow and the other side didn't when I received the printed job. It was a small job and the client didn't even notice it when I pointed it out so the job didn't get bounced.

No one I know wants shadows relative to page. Making PDFs is an unnecessary extra step. Intuitively, if I have a drop shadow down and to the right of the object. I expect the shadow to be down and to the right of the object when I dupe it and rotate it 180. Not above and to the left of the object.

[M***@adobeforums.com]

Richard, When I read your last statement, It appeared to me that you were stating that you want the shadows to behave exactly as they do now. You have an object with a shadow offset 'down and to the right'. After rotation, the shadow remains 'down and to the right'.

When the objects are rotated 180 degress, the shadow does remain 'down and to the right'. This shows the shadow is not rotating with the object. It remains in position relative to the 'global light' position defined by the X & Y offset set in the Drop Shadow dialog, which remains static in relation to the page.

Since we cannot rotate the actual page (all rotation is object level), you will always have the problem of the shadows apparently reversing direction relative to the objects when rotated unless the shadow feature is revamped to allow linking to the object's rotation.

There are situations where a 'global light' may be preferred to a 'local light' for the shadows. It is also true that I have found reason to desire a 'local light' or a shadow linked to the object orientation, rather than the page, for reasons very similar to the table tent example. However, it is relatively easy to simulate that function by applying the negative value when the objects are rotated 180 degrees.

There is no doubt that the shadow effects within Photoshop are more robust and mature than those of InDesign. We can hope that IDCS3 (ID5) will have improvements in this area. I would prefer a dialogue with similar features: an offset distance value, a radial selector for direction (with a text field for manual entry), etc. The X & Y offset is not as intuitive to me.

-mt