A

Anonymous

Question

Please help with inner shadow in Illustrator

Forum|Forum|17 years ago
June 3, 2009
17 replies
43395 views

I am trying to accomplish something that looks like the following in Illustrator. What is the best way to go about doing that?

A

Anonymous

Here is the simpletst way I found (Illustrator CS5).

1. Outline text.

2. Copy it (Ctrl+C)

3. Duplicate it with an offset of the shadow (hold Alt and drag it to the position).

4. Ungroup everything.

5. Open Pathfinder

6. Select one letter and its shadow and select 2nd option - Minus Front. Do this with each letter.

Conditional, if you want different color in the back of letters.

7. Paste to back (Ctrl+B).

8. Change color.

Done! Time - 1 minute

A

Anonymous

Yes but if you have to do this on a lot of objects it will take a lot of time. There has to be a feature to offset inner shadows.

A

Anonymous

I had the same problem and I found a simple solution to it:

I've created a photoshop file first in which I created all the objects having an inner shadow - then I saved everything as PDF file and reopened it in Illustrator.

Illustrator converted everything to vectors even my inner shadow and so I could go on working like intended.

This is maybe not best practice, but works quicker than other approaches.

Scott Falkner

Community Expert

For something with a gradient or pattern you probably will be better off with a compound path. Copy the text with outlines. Draw a rectangle around the existing text and make a compound path with the text and the rectangle. Now you have an inverse shape with your text acting as holes in the rectangle. Fill with our shadow colour, blur if necessary, and set opacity mode to Multiply in the Transparency panel, and set the transparency level (I used 70%). This will become the shadow, so move it however much you want the shadow to be offset. Paste in Front, Shift-click to select the shadow, and create you mask.

One problem with Illustrator is (for no good reason whatsoever) your fill and stroke are removed when you make a mask. No worry. Paste (not Paste in Front) to create a new copy of the original text. Use the eyedropper to copy the gradient to your mask.

In fact, using the live Pathfinder tools, you don't need to convert the text to paths. The samples above use live text. Click here for AI CS2 file.

W

Wade_Zimmerman1

Inspiring

I still think the Live Paint group is the easiest way

Scott Falkner

Community Expert

Wade_Zimmerman wrote:
I still think the Live Paint group is the easiest way

I don't. Not transparent without extra steps. Not able to use live text. Not able to use a soft shadow. Goes to pieces if the shadow is moved.

A

Anonymous

How would I go about adding a gradient to the text afterwards?

A

Anonymous

Not really... I just realized the first image I showed isn't a very good example of what I am looking for. Here's a better example. I just used the inner shadow tool in photoshop. So as you can see the black is actually inside the blue text.

Scott Falkner

Community Expert

I think you just missed my previous post.

A

Anonymous

Yep I think you posted it just before I posted mine. Thanks! It works! However I am having trouble because I converted my text to a compound path because that's what some tutorial said I had to do so I could put a gradient on it. So do I have to start over and do this clipping part first, then convert it to a compound path, and then apply my gradient? Or is there an easier way.

Scott Falkner

Community Expert

The forums are running especially bucket awful today. Must be running at half-gerbil.

Here's what I did: Copy text, Edit > Paste Behind, use cursor keys to move copy, Shift-click on original text, Object > Clipping mask > Make. Now select just the top text item and use the Appearance panel to Add New Fill, giving it the colour of the drop shadow. Done, unless you want a soft shadow like on the bottom. Then use Effect > Blur > Gaussian Blur on the bottom text item.

E

East29298472xwg5

Participant

I love you.

Jacob Bugge

Community Expert

hijack,

It looks like a shadow created by a nearby light source. Is that intended?

A

Anonymous

I dunno, I didn't really intend for it. I just think it adds to the text and used it all the time in photoshop, but now that I switched to Illustrator (which does not have inner shadow) I am not sure how to do it.

Jacob Bugge

Community Expert

hijack,

Does Effect>Stylize>Drop Shadow full opacity, no blur, 100% darkness, and appropriate offsets, do what you need?

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