When Quark acquired ALAP at the end of 2005, many happy users of their ShadowCaster XTension wondered about its future. Quark has now answered that question with the free release of ShadowCaster 3.3 for QuarkXPress 7 for Mac.
ShadowCaster lets you add bevels, embosses, glows and inner shadows to page items, including placed graphics. It even works on groups of items.
The result is a graphic file that you can save in several different formats (TIFF, Scitex, JPEG), or even as a Layered TIFF, which you can then open in Photoshop.
Amazingly, in Photoshop, ShadowCaster’s effects show up as standard editable effects. (!)
Once you find a combination of effects you like, you can save them as a preset for use on future items, or share them with other users. I could see this being particularly handy on, say, a catalog where an effect is used over and over. And I’ve seen some impressive examples from users who have mastered this tool
I find using ShadowCaster to be a little bit clunky, because although it imports the new graphic into a picture box in the same location as the original item(s), it places it behind the original. You then must manually either delete the original or move it to a new layer for future use. Also, on my Mac, the preview built into the ShadowCaster palette insisted on making the rightmost 40% of the preview a strange color — clearly a bug.
Downloading ShadowCaster requires free registration with Quark’s new Quark Labs website. It’s available only for Mac OS X, and oddly, the documentation is for version 3.2, the last commercial version.
January 21st, 2008 at 6:33 pm
What options do we PC Quark users have regarding ShadowCaster?
January 22nd, 2008 at 9:06 am
None, as far as I can tell. Quark hasn’t mentioned a Windows version.
January 22nd, 2008 at 11:38 am
Come on Quark, treat your customers equally.
If you develop it for the Mac, give us Windows users a version.
January 25th, 2008 at 9:10 pm
I have ShadowCaster for Quark 6.
And I’d like to get it for Quark 7. So do I call Quark to register for Quark Labs?
I noticed that CropMarks extention was also removed from the Alap original set as well. Kind of annoying.
January 28th, 2008 at 10:35 am
To say this is free isn’t quite accurate. In effect it’s a public beta and I’d be surprised if it didn’t have an in-built timeout. Vic
January 28th, 2008 at 10:39 am
Quark didn’t develop it for Mac. They bought the company that developed it (alap - a lowly apprentice production). Previous versions of Shadowcaster have always been for both Mac & PC. However, chances are that the functionality will be built directly into a later version of Quark at which point PC users will have access to it.
January 29th, 2008 at 9:32 am
Julie: to get version 7 of ShadowCaster just go to the link in the story above (or to http://labs.quark.com) and click the Download button on the ShadowCaster page. It will ask you to register for Quark Labs if you haven’t already.
January 29th, 2008 at 9:38 am
Julie: I agree that the old XPert ItemMarks XTension from alap does have some handy features that the Crop Marks script in QuarkXPress doesn’t. (Scripts menu> Box Tools> Add Crop Marks)
I think they should have included it in XPert Tools. I particularly like that you can not place crop and registration marks, slugs, color bars and dimensional arrows around any item, and onto any layer.