While I used to use Photoshop CS exclusively when it came out, I've been using Inkscape for about 3 years now for web design. I definitely miss layer effects and better tuned image compression, so I'm running the trial of Photoshop CS4 Here's what I want to do: Concept one: Create a layer with nothing but a rectangle that has a drop shadow. Select that rectangle and the entire drop-shadow and nothing more Concept two: Create an image where the outside edge of a drop-shadow layer effect snaps to the grid Concept three: Create Layers with guides (so I can toggle "guide sets") Concept four: Create a non-standard grid(40px wide by 18px high) Any tips? Or should I just make a bunch of guides and turn snap off and eyeball where the shadows end so I can keep them inside the guides?
For one and two, I think the only way to do that is to rasterize the layer effects and then merge the resulting effects layer with the original shape. You can then Cmd/Ctrl-click the icon in the layers palette and select just that thing, and snap will automatically go to the outermost edges. Guides are built into the rulers, just 'drag' them out from the top or left wherever you need them. I prefer the precision of slices, not to mention that they'll automatically chop up the image into pngs for me when I save for web. One thing I just found out is that content-aware scale works fantastically for rounded rectangles, especially those with drop shadow effects. Just in case you need to resize them after the fact. Would probably be useful for #2 where you can just draw out any size rectangle, and content-aware scale it to the grid as necessary - effects like drop shadows most likely won't be distorted at all. AFAIK there's no way to make non-square gridlines (besides manually dragging out rulers). But by the time that I need that level of pixel-accuracy, I'm at 600%+ zoom so it would hardly matter.
