"Spread" not working in Drop Shadow, only shadows with hard edges?

[DanielAlexander]

Hi! I am taking an online Photoshop course, and we just started to cover layer editing with Drop Shadow. Everything goes well when adding a drop shadow, and all of the features work fine EXCEPT the "spread" feature. I cannot get the shadows to soften no matter what value spread is set, even if it's down to 0. From 0-100 in the Spread setting, there is no change and it just stays a hard-edge shadow. Does anyone know what's wrong or how to fix this? I am using Adobe Photoshop CC 2019 version 20.0.6 from the Creative Suite subscription.

[JohanElzenga]

Is the Size set to zero perhaps? If you set the Size to zero, then Spread does not do anything.

[andreamaestri]

Hello Daniel!

I'm not sure what size is your document or object that your applying drop shadow, that could affect your ability to create softer shadows. But if you see down here here's how the setting would affect your photoshop.