3 Powerful Ways to Use Outer Shadow Effects


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Don’t let your text, diagrams or images get overshadowed. In this article you will learn 3 powerful ways to use outer shadow effects to add clarity and readability to your slides.

There are three types of shadow presets available in PowerPoint. They are Outer, Inner and Perspective shadow presets.

3 Types of Shadows
There are some useful applications for each of the preset types. In this article, we will take a look at three useful applications of outer shadow presets.

#1 Make your text legible

It is not easy to read text written on a busy picture. However, when you add an outline to text and an outer shadow, the text suddenly looks clear and readable. Here is an example that makes the point:

Legible Text with Outer ShadowThe visual icons in the fly out menu clearly show the results you can expect when you apply the different outer shadow effects to your shapes.

#2 Made your screenshot standout

Let us say you want to include a screen shot of a slide. Adding just a picture border doesn’t make it stand out enough. When you add a simple shadow preset, the screenshot pops out of the slide immediately as shown in the following example:

Screenshot with outer shadowRelated: See how shadows are used in creating a Stunning 3D PowerPoint Target

#3 Differentiate layers easily

Let us say you want to create a designer slide by arranging a stack of photos one on top of the other. Without a shadow preset, the photos don’t seem to be stacked, because the edges merge with the background. Whereas with the application of a simple shadow preset, you can see how the photos seem to be layered one above the other.

Layers of photos with shadowsYou can observe the effect better when we take a closer look at the edges:

Different with and without outer shadowRelated: tutorial on creating stack of photos.

Those were just a few of the applications of outer shadow presets. If you have found more applications we request you to share them with us below, so that other viewers can benefit from your ideas.

There are a lot of useful articles on this website that help you understand PowerPoint shadows in detail. Please take time to browse through them to create consistent and remarkable diagrams for your business presentations.

Quick Note:
All of the example diagram templates showcased above are from the  PowerPoint Charts and Graphics CEO Pack 2.
The pack contains 815+high quality graphics and diagrams created by us from scratch.
All the templates in the collection are 100% editable. Just choose the template that matches your thought and replace the sample text with your own text. Your business slides get ready in no time. Creating professional quality business slides has never been easier. Go ahead browse and download the templates to create high-quality presentations quickly.

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Related: 3 Common mistakes in adding shadows

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