Can you put drop shadows in ID on a separate layer?

[Bobbigirl]

Using the drop shadow feature in InDesign, can you put the shadow on a separate layer after applying the shadow to an item?

In Photoshop, you apply the drop shadow effect, then go to layers and select "create layer" and it separates into a layer linked with the items it shadows.

Is there a sort of way to do this in ID?

[Broacher]

A real pain, no? That's why many ID users simply place the DS as a separate PSD image into ID. Or, if you're lucky enough to have the latest IDCS2, I understand you can preserve the layer structure of a PSD when placing so that you can move things around as much as you like after it's in.

[vtwin_gary]

teach me something... why do you want the shadow on a seperate layer?
is this text or an image?

[Bobbigirl]

I have a catalog of mostly pens, and we are not sure if we want to use shadows or not yet, and it would be nice to just click the shadow layer on/off when we want... we could easily show it both ways. It would avoid selecting all the shadowed images separately then choosing the drop shadow feature and clicking it off.

[Broacher]

>>I have a catalog of mostly pens, and we are not sure if we want to use shadows or not yet, and it would be nice to just click the shadow layer on/off when we want.<<

If you were doing this by multi-importing PSDs with separate drop shadow layers, you'd have to move all the drop shadows into a lower layer to switch between 'on' and 'off' (with the layer palette control). You do realize that at any time in ID you can do a 'Select all' (or build a selection set with drags, clicks etc.) , invoke the Drop Shadow dbox (Ctrl-Alt-M on my system) and turn it on, or off. Now, if all the shadows had the same setting, this could work for you. Except, you'd have to be sure to keep the pen photos in the only layer that was unlocked before you do your 'select all' and apply the shadow.

As far as individual drop shadow control-- it's also pretty easy to keep all that in PShop (better shadow controls too) and use the 'Edit Image' command in ID (I use a shortcut for this one) to boot it into Photoshop where you simply switch it off and resave. Repeat to bring it back in.

[Bobbigirl]

Yeah, we thought about doing that -- bringing psd files in, but when we resize the images (they are often at different sizes) the shadows scale with the image. Then the shadows are inconsistent. For example, we have one pen brought into ID at 50%, and another brought in at 75%, the shadows are going to look different. So the ID drop shadow command works wonderful for keeping them the same.