[scribus] pdf problems

[Jeffrey Silverman]

<snip!>
> I import both images into scribus and make the shadow 30% transparent
> in the properties window.
>
> Is that the right way to do it ?
> Is that the right way to make an image with no background be overlaid ?
>
> regards
>
> mick


There is no right way or wrong way, there are only ways, grasshopper

Actually, though, for myself, if I want a "real" drop shadow, I create
the whole image, drop shadow included, in Gimp or Inkscape (Photoshop
is fine), export as PNG at a high DPI, and import the drop-shadowed
PNG into scribus.

This is troublesome from a workflow perspective, as one has to go into
the image editor and fix the source image if there is an issue or
somethign needs to be chagned, but it is not that bad. Except for drop
shadows on mostly-text frames, or mostly-text images, icons, or
badges. Which, since I make mostly ads, is a lot.

So yes, it would be nice if Scribus had "real" drop shadows that
allowed transparency and blur. (Scribus has the transparency part) The
best you can do in Scribus natively -- and I do this a lot and it
doesn't look all that bad -- is:

 - dupe an image or text frame
 - convert that to all black
 - drop its transparency to like 30% or 40%
 - nudge it a few pixels down and left/right
 - drop it to a layer below the main layer

But that's not quite the same as what I call a "real" drop shadow.
Gausian blur is an important part of making a ds.

But hey, reflections are the new drop shadow anyway! Or they were
(still are?) I wonder what will be the new reflections?
[http://www.37signals.com/svn/archives2/reflections_are_the_new_drop_shadows.php]

-- 
JDS