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	Xara X. The Shadow Tool




	Before the Shadow Tool came along there were several ways, none simple, used to create the appearance of a soft drop shadow. But now creating soft shadows is a piece of cake. Select the object. Select the Shadow Tool. Click of Shadow Type. And faster than you can say Bob's your uncle, you've got a zippy soft shadow. But better than that, you can easily modify the shadow. Corel users will be amazed at how much more intuitive and simple the process in Xara X. You can also select an object directly with the Shadow Tool and drag the shadow out from the object.


	There are three Shadow Types shown here: Wall Shadow, so called because it resembles a shadow cast upon a wall, Floor Shadows, because this shadow appears to be cast upon a floor like surface, and Glow which produces a soft glow around the selected object or objects.

It wouldn't be a Xara X feature if it didn't have Profile settings, right?

These settings are more subtle than some of the other Profile settings applied with other tools, but if you look carefully you may be able to discern the difference.

There are two ways to modify shadows and they appear on the Infobar: Blur and Transparency.

As you can see in the example on the left, the higher the value (6pix is the default) the fuzzier the shadow. And notice the clever way in which the shadow realistically gets softer the farther it gets from the object casting it.

The second way to modify shadows is Transparency .

The smaller the percentage, the less transparent the shadow. A value of 100% is totally invisible.

HOW TO: To modify either a shadows Blur and/or Transparency, select the object with the Shadow Tool and move the appropriate slider on the Infobar or key in a value in the text entry box.

Don't like the color of the shadow?

Change it. Just drag and drop a color from the screen palette and drop it onto the shadow.

Or, click the shadow with the Selector Tool (the arrow cursor) while holding down the Ctrl key (to select just the shadow), and click a color on the screen palette.

You can easily change the positon of a Floor or Wall Shadow by dragging it with the Shadow Tool.

And here is something your editor just discovered, drag a Glow with the Shadow Tool and it expands or contracts (depending upon whether you drag in or out). Is that cool, or what?


	A glowing picture is worth a thousand words, and I've already written enough.