Need suggestion on making a shadow box look

[Vesta]

My husband is a wood carver and I would like to make a shadow box image with shelves and put pictures of his carvings (charicatures and realistics) for a gift for his birthday. Now are you all scratching your heads and says WHAT!:) It's only in my head not in my ability, thats why I ask you.:D

Vesta

[Jodi Frye]

You asked...
Well you'll have to make the frame of the box first....what you can do for starters..if you want the shelves to look like wood...look in the effects palette for 'Wood-pine' and double click on it to fill your layer...I think that effect gets displayed in two different layers...so you'll have to merge them to proceed to the next step...

to build your shelf make selections from that wood layer with the rectangular marque tool and do a Ctrl+J to copy the selection to a new layer above....you'll probably want to put a white fill layer between the two so that you can see what you are doing. So pretend you have a saw and you are cutting pieces of wood from the bottom layer and building your shelf with the pieces on the top layers...keep all the pieces on seperate layers so you can move them around they way you wish...just drag the layers up past that white layer...after you do the ctrl + J...the white layer is only there so you can see what you are doing..you can trash it and/or replace it with something else after you are done.

Once you have the frame built with shelves ...on a new layer above make selections with the rectangular marquee tool along the inside of the shelves and fill with white ( don't panic ...it wont stay white) .....go to layer styles and choose >inner shadows>choose high...I think that will be your best bet....then set that layer blend mode to ' multiply ' so all you see is the shadow and not the white fill.

So you'll also have to decide what will be in the background...wood or whatever.

[Wendy]

Hi Vesta ...

Not too sure what a shadow box is :confused:

... In 2003 a couple of friend had their Golden Wedding, Bod is noted for wearing many different hats so I did this for them its called "A Hat for Every Occasion" ... is this the type of thing you mean??? .. or something similar ??

http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1fMc5Ld3CGXYRbrT6LX3JIgYOY6Pq

endy

[Wendy]

Jodi ...

Guess we were typing at the same time ... it took me ages to find the image :)

Wendy

[Jodi Frye]

:D Yup, that is pretty much it but they come in all shapes and sizes...some have tiny little box shelves while others are more open like yours... It's good that you posted that tho...good for reference while building ;)

[Vesta]

Wendy and Jodi,

Doesn't it get scary when your typing what someone else is already thinking.:D

Yes, You've got it... perfect look. He really is an talented carver...He also does Victorian Rocking horses. Wendy are you familiar with Anthony Dew, he wrote the book my husband uses. I think he lives in Yorkshire. The horses are constructed the same way since 1700's. They are heirlooms to be past down to many generations.

[Jodi Frye]

Vesta, I did a quick one the way I mentioned to do it....the only difference is that the 'inner shadow' layers were too dark so I lowered the opacity quite a bit.

http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=17TVM9TA7NbL048BsemC2WjaiLeOP0

[bwolford]

Beautiful, talented, and she's a carpenter too! Jodi, do you mow lawns? :D

Brice

[Jodi Frye]

Thanks Brice, and yes, yes i do....how else do you think I keep this figure ? ;)