Tour of the Bevel and Emboss Settings in PSCS2

One of the most frequent tutorial requests has been for guidance on layer styles such as drop shadows and beveling.

Today we start by looking at the Bevel and Emboss settings in the layer styles palette in PSCS2. I know many readers use PSE, however layer styles is one of the area in which Photoshop and Photoshop Elements are very different so it is difficult to write a single tutorial covering both. I will be on look out for layer style resources for PSE users and hope to have a related post soon.

Beveling adds depth, texture and dimension to objects. For the sake of example I've cut a flower shape out of a background to which I will be applying the layer style, but you can add bevels to create a wide variety of scrapping elements such as frames and alphabets.

To access the Bevel and Emboss layer style settings, click on the layer styles icon at the base of the layers palette. The layer styles icon is a circle with a script f. Select "Bevel and Emboss" from the pop up menu.



Click on the small arrow to the right of the words 'Inner Bevel' to show the Style drop down menu. There are 5 styles to choose from, the most common in digital scrapping being the Inner Bevel and Outer Bevel. An Inner Bevel will place the bevel contouring along the inside of the layer, while the Outer Bevel will place the contouring along the outside edge of the layer. The best way to learn the various effects is to try each of them and observe the results. Make sure the box titled 'Preview' in the left side of the dialogue box is checked to assure you can see your changes as you make them.



The technique box drop down menu allows you to choose the effect of the bevel. Choose 'smooth' for a smooth curve and 'chisel hard' or 'chisel soft' for a more chiseled effect. In general, I use the smooth setting to create soft items such as fabric, paper, puffy plastic, etc. and use the chiseled settings when created/shaping wood and stone items.



The depth slider allows you to control the magnitude of the bevel. The lower the number, the more subtle the effect.



The size slider allows you to control how large the bevel is. The larger the number the larger the space used for the bevel.

The soften slider allows you to further refine the severity of the beveling curve. The larger the number, the softer the bevel.

The angle settings are used to set the location of the shadow and highlights of the beveling. The most common setting for digital scrapping is an angle of 120 degrees.

Finally the Highlight and Shadow modes control the intensity of the shadows and highlights of the beveling. The defaults are 75%, but I often lower both to decrease the intensity of the effect. Lower the highlights slider more when beveling darker objects and the shadows slider when working with lighter objects.

I realize this overview might be frustrating to those who like concrete settings, but I find each application requires slightly different settings and I've been better served by having a general understanding of the various options and then playing with the settings to get a specific effect.

See the two items below for a couple of examples of beveling.

You'll notice scroll work embedded in the hinge. I don't have the exact settings saved, but to give you a general idea, the scroll work was created by creating the scroll shapes and then adding an inner bevel, smooth technique setting, 100% depth, direction down, low size setting, no softening, lowered highlights setting.

The quilted effect in the heart was created using an inner bevel at the smooth technique setting, but the depth was lower, the direction up, high size setting, maximum softening (16px) and the highlights and shadowing both decreased a little from their default settings.