Shadow Map Window.

The Shadow Map Window allows you to load in a grayscale image that affects the colored Texture. There are many ways to control and alter the Shadow preset that's been loaded.

Modify your Shadow.

The Texture may look like a flat color; a color with flat texture; or a color with bumpy texture. Once you have selected a Texture, you can open the Edit menu to make changes in a few ways.

Blur the shadow. The Blur slider softens the Shadow, which is good for realistic shading.

Set the darkness. Opacity sets how much the Shadow affects the Texture. Higher = Darker.

Set the brightness. Make changes to the Shadow's tonal values with the Brightness and Contrast sliders.

Move, scale or rotate. Change the look by using the Transform tools to move, rotate, or scale the Shadows.

Mutate the shadow. The Mutation Wells and Mutate Level slider will randomize and change the composition of your Texture.

Distort the texture. The Bend Editor sets how the Shadow distorts your Texture.

Simulate a shadow.

The Shadow Window acts as a 'bump map’ for your texture. Bump Mapping is a graphics term that refers to a visual distortion when two images are combined.

Basically, one image alters the shading of a second image. This effect create the illusion of depth and height, like the ridges and folds of material.

This ‘fake’ appearance of depth/height is based on the brightness values of the first image. White gives the appearance of height, and black gives the appearance of valleys. All values of gray give a range of height in between.

EXAMPLE: In both textures, the blue color wraps around the light/dark areas of the gray. The first Shadow has a higher contrast, and so the folds it creates are more pronounced.

Use Shadow presets.

The Shadow Window allows you to select from hundreds of ready-made bump maps. These presets cover a wide range of looks, and their attributes may be changed to create thousands of variations. To open the Shadow Preset Manager, click on the orange Load arrow in the Shadow Window.

Load a preset.

The Load button is often your starting point when you open up Backdrop Designer. This is because you'll want to find a Shadow that will suit your purpose. The plugin will remember the last texture that you used. This is a great feature when you are applying the same Backdrop to different photos in succession.