In this lesson, I'll introduce you to the wonderful world of Layer Styles. We'll only scratched the surface in this video, but you'll learn how to access three very useful styles especially for photos, We'll practice applying these styles to the three photos we placed on a new document in our last lesson, if you don't have a saved copy of the file, you can open my copy called 6x16-mat.psd, which you'll find in the Part 3 lesson five practice folder.

I've added a gray tint to the background mat so we can better see one of the styles. If you set up your panels the way I instructed in Part 1, the Styles panel will be one of the tabs in your Panel Bin, so click on the Styles tab to make it the active panel. If you don't see the Styles panel in the Menu Bar, choose Window, Styles.

To add a style first, activate the Layers panel and choose the layer that needs a style. I have the dad and child layers selected in the Layers panel. Then open the Styles panel, open the menu at the top, and you'll see quite a list of styles which you can have fun exploring, but the one you'll probably use the most is drop shadows. So let's check that one out.

Let's zoom in so we can see the photo better. Click on a drop shadow thumbnail, and that style will be added to your photo. Unfortunately, most of these shadows are really strange. So I'll click on the next one. The Shadow isn't bad, but it's too dark for my taste. The next shadow is way too big. But the next one is pretty good. Then we get some shadows I would never use. But this last one is quite nice. So personally, I would only use the shadow that simulates the harsh shadow you get when you're in direct sunlight, or the softer shadow you might get from an overcast sky or inside a house.

So I think this one would work best for the picture. I still need to adjust the shadow though, because a photo is thin, so the shadow would normally be much smaller unless you put something behind the photo to pop it up. So let me show you how to adjust a layer style. Go back to the Layers panel. And now you'll see an fx icon on the layer indicating I've added an effect to the layer, in this case a drop shadow.

To adjust the drop shadow, double click on the Effects icon. When the dialog box comes up, note the lighting angle. I like to keep the shadow angle at 120 degrees, which simulates light coming from the upper left and casting a shadow to the lower right. Feel free to change the angle if you want the shadow going in a different direction, and you can do that by clicking and dragging on the angle line. Notice how that changes the shadow. Or you can just simply click on the number and type a number in there. I will type 120. And that's my favorite lighting angle.

Next, we have the option to adjust the size, distance, and opacity, and you can do that by moving the sliders as well. Or you can click on the number and change it that way, which is what I'll do. So I'm going to have a size of eight distance of five. And I'll set the opacity to 60%. Notice the color chip. You can click on it to get the Color Picker so you can change the color of the drop shadow. But I use black 99% of the time. And if I do change the color, I might use a really dark brown. For this photo, I'll use a default of black. When you're satisfied with the look of your drop shadow. Click OK. And to me that shadow looks a lot more realistic for a small thin photo.

Now let me give you another tip: You almost always have to adjust the layer styles. So for styles you use a lot let me show you another option for the other two photos. Start by selecting your next photo, which you can do by clicking with the Move tool on the photo itself. Or you can click on its layer in the Layers panel. This time we'll add a black stroke outline using the Menu Bar. In the Menu Bar, choose Layer, Layer Style, Style Settings. Notice I can add a drop shadow, a glow, a bevel, or a stroke. I'll click on the box next to Stroke to activate it.

Open the Position menu and choose Inside. Always, always use inside for the stroke when you're applying it to a rectangular image. That will keep the corners nice and sharp. For a black stroke, use a size of one to three pixels. And I'll use three pixels and then lower the opacity to 65%. Notice there is a color chip. So this means you can change the color of the stroke. But don't get too wild with color. Your photos will look more elegant with a black or white stroke. But occasionally another color can work as well.

Speaking of white strokes, let's click OK to apply this style and try a white stroke outline on the middle photo. In the Layers panel, click on the middle layer to make it the active layer. In the Menu Bar, choose Layer, Layer Style, Style Settings. Click on the box next to Stroke. Click on the color chip to get the Color Picker. Choose white from the upper left corner. And the easiest way to do that is to click and drag from somewhere in the big color box to the upper left corner until you can't go any further and that will be the color white. Click OK to the color picker. We'll use 25 for the size. And now look at the corners and see how rounded they are. That's because the default position of a stroke is outside. For a rectangle always choose inside for the position and that will give you nice sharp corners. And you'll want to choose 100% opacity.

By the way you can add more than one layer style to a layer. I don't recommend adding a glow or a bevel to a photo or paper layer. Have you ever seen a bevel on a real photo? I didn't think so. So I don't recommend adding a bevel to a digital photo because it will look unrealistic and amateur. Only add bevels to thicker 3-D items. But a paper photo does have a small drop shadow. So let's add one.

Click on the box next to Drop Shadow and you instantly get the default drop shadow settings. It already looks better over here doesn't it? I'll change the settings to what I used on my other photo. Eight for the size, five for the distance. And we'll use 50% opacity, and then click OK.

So there are my three layer style possibilities. The black stroke outline, the white stroke outline, or a simple drop shadow. Which one do you like the best? I think any one of them would work. But because these are more informal playful pictures. I'll choose the middle option, a white enter stroke with a drop shadow. To match the same style on the other two pictures you could double click on the Effects icon for each of the other layers and manually change the style, but it's easier to copy a style from one layer to another.

To do that, right click on the layer with the style you want and choose Copy Layer Style. Then select one or more layers that need the layer style. Here I'll click on the top layer and control click in Windows or Command click on a Mac on the bottom photo layer to select it as well. If you recall in a previous lesson, in part one we learned how to select more than one file. And I told you then that you would be using that same technique in other situations. Well, this is one of those situations. In this case, we can select more than one layer using that same technique: Ctrl clicking in Windows or Command clicking on a Mac allows you to select or deselect a single layer.

To copy the layer style to the selected layers, right click on one of the selected layers and choose Paste Layer Style and the white stroke and drop shadow layer styles will replace the styles on the other two photos. If you ever want to get rid of layer styles, you can click and drag an effects icon to the Trash. But I'll press Ctrl Z in Windows or Command Z on a Mac to undo that and show you a faster way to get rid of styles on multiple layers.

Start by selecting all the layers with the styles you want to remove. I'll click on the top photo layer and shift click on the bottom photo layer to select all three. Remember that shift clicking allows you to select files are in this case layers that are in a row. Now you can right click on one of the selected layers and choose Clear Layer Style from the menu. But again, I'll press Ctrl Z and Windows or Command Z on a Mac, so we can retain our nice layer styles.

Now it's your turn to add Layer Styles. Feel free to experiment with different settings in the Layer Style dialog box. But remember, don't overdo it. A little bit of a style looks natural, a lot looks garish. So that's how to access and add layer styles to layers in Photoshop Elements.