Drop Shadows changing shape when exporting or rasterizing

yes me too, in my case im exporting as a .pdf  which remains as it should . changing image size  ratio remaining the same 16:9 exporting the thumbnail to .png  the drop shadow has move position and or become diffused. Ive tried with different drop shadow set ups  same result .

Eporting using the save for we lagacy the preview is not showing eigther .  any body know the solution ?

I'm having the same issue. The best solution I've found is to merge all layers prior to exporting artboards.

Hello Sophie,

When does the difference in appearance occur? Do you immediately see it when opening Export As in the preview? Or only after exporting the file? Are you making changes to the settings in Export As, or leaving things at default? If anything, I would suspect Image Size and/or Scale All settings could be a factor here. I haven't seen anything yet which shows Export As as the culprit yet.

The project file provided previously shows the distortion upon opening the file in Photoshop, before going into Export As (it doesn't look like the screen shots). I'm wondering if you could provide a file that looks fine in Photoshop but becomes distorted once you open it in Export As or becomes distored after exporting it. 

Sophie, Im sorry to hear you're also expericing this issue but im somewhat relieved other people are dealing with the same and hopefully we can resolve this together! 

So you're saying when you do Save for Web it exports fine, but what did you mean when you said when rasterizing the linked files, the drop shadows and glow seem to export with no issues. 

This all leads me to belive it isn't based on the size of the image that the shadows and glow effects are being applied to, and rather a bug or issue with our softwares.

Im recently having this problem on version 23.1.0, starting to think its a bug as never seen this before.
All my drop shadows and also glow change size (seem to expand in size) when I save through Export As, but not through Save for Web, and when I rasterise the linked file with them in they export fine aswell.

It musn't be within the file directly, as no matter how many times I created a new or opened an old file and tried a fresh drop shadow the same issues prevailed. 

Im faimilar with global lighting, and was aware that wasn't the issue here but having worked with many different software in the past, I know things can be buggy. 

I also tried with a much smaller image on the same size canvas, a larger image, would still experince the same issues I was before. Would really love help in resolving this. 

Thank you for the project file. However, the issue has already occurred with the file and it doesn't look as smooth as your screen shots. I notice that the text is already rasterized, but if I create a new layer of text and move the drop shadows to that, it still looks the same. I'm wondering what changed between those screen shots and the file you provided. 

To clarify, Global Lighting is a way of syncing the settings between your different Layers Styles that use the Angle setting. It simplifies things so all of your drop shadows across different layers all look like they are being cast from the same light source. It wouldn't have anything to do with this issue.

Also, Canvas Size wouldn't have any direct effect on this issue either. It just determines the usable area of your image. If the Size or Distance of your drop shadows made them so big that they moved off the page, you could increase the canvas to make room for them. But it would not change their shape in anyway. 

One thing this brings up though is how drop shadow quality is lowered the larger it gets. If perhaps you meant Image Size instead of Canvas Size, and you greatly increase the size of the file, the quality of drop shadow may be dropping significantly. If you are increase the overall file size, it would probably be best to rasterize the layer effect (along with the text) before doing so to keep the smoother lines you see at smaller sizes.

Normally, for this type of project, I would recommend working with Illustrator instead of Photoshop. Its tools are more closely geared to create smooth effects on things like text. 

Brentt, I shared a PSD file in my reply to Jeffrey linked as a drop box. 

I will open a new document, set it to 1080x1080 pixels with a vector background. Create a new layer, fill in my background color, ill create some text, move it around change the sizes and shapes so that it conforms the way I like. From there ill right click on the layer window and select rasterize type. Then I will double click on the window and select drop shadow. From there Ill select my color, put in my adjustmnets for size shape and distance. 100% opacity, normal mode selected, 120^ degrees positive, i toggled global lighting to see if this would make a difference, it did not. I adjust the canavas size to see if making it conform to the size of my text + drop shadow would stop it from changing shape, I read something else stating the size of the canvas is what the drop shadow is applied to in render & export, and what i was viewing was just what was rendered in a smaller sample space for faster loading. I played around a lot and couldnt find a solution. Thanks 

To expond on what Jeff said, a sample file would be helpful here. I have an idea about what may be going on, but I haven't been able to recreate on my end. An also, exact steps (how you are rasterizing, how you are exporting) would also guide us to figure out what is going on. If you could record a video of your workflow, that would be best, otherwise, just provide things like menu items used, etc.

I use File > Save As > Save as JPEG, tried PNG, tried messing with JPEG & PNG export options, tried quick exporting the layer itself that has the drop shadows on it. Here is the PSD file in a dropbox link! 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/dexrxxmzsafhn2k/DemoDoc.psd?dl=0