I love the “Inset Shadow” option provided in S4S ImageWizard stack (I’m sure there are others.) See sample below.
Does anyone know of a little (non-Photoshop and etc) graphic utility that will produce Inset Shadows as an option?
Here’s a sample as produced in ImageWizard stack:
Original on left… Very subtle inset shadow on right.
Logoist 3 does this very nicely.
Thanks very much! I’ll have a look! Appreciate the reply.
Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer both do inset shadows. There’s great control over the look. Both are fantastic apps. I wouldn’t suggest buying to only do this as both apps do a lot more. So they are not “little utilities” but great alternatives to the Adobe products.
Yeah… I was hoping for a simple/cheapie util. Logoist 3 is a possibility at $29 but I hate to buy it just to do this. Perhaps I’ll see it in a Bundle deal somewhere. (I also have an ancient copy of Photoshop that I’m surprised still works.)
As few as I have to do I might just use RW/ImageWizard to do what I need. I’ll build and preview and take a screenshot. Of course, I’ll be at screen resolution but I think that will be OK for my needs. (no retina image)
Pretty much every decent graphic App will do inset shadows. Autodesk Graphic at $29 is the not only dirt cheap but is IMHO the very best App for creating web graphics this side of Sketch. PS I also have Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and Affinity designer and never use them because Graphic is just about perfect.
Alternatively you could use CSS to add inset shadows and I would be surprised if there wasn’t a stack that had this function.
Ha, I have Graphic also but almost never use it as I love the Affinity products. That said, it is a great price and a great app. And, at $29, it really is a very good bargain.
… and given what Gary wrote I might have to reconsider using Graphic more often.
This is off-topic from your original question, but a key thing to consider with Graphic/Designer is they handle and create SVGs really well. And SVGs can be critical for having crystal clear graphics (non-photos). Both import PDFs really nicely. Easy to get rid of extras on a PDF, and export the remaining “good bits” to a high quality SVG. This means Graphic or Designer is an even more useful tool beyond your immediate needs.
At $29.99 I’d definitely get Graphic (rather than Designer) and have a good simple product to do a lot of non-photo graphic work with for web design.
The threads above indicate that I use S4S’ ImageWizard to to this within RW, and yes, CSS can do this but I’m asking about a tool to use outside of RW also and to have on hand stock images that have inset shadows.
Thanks for the suggestion of Autodesk Graphic… will absolutely check it out.
I abandoned Designer because of it’s poor SVG support but I have read that it has since improved. I have never had an issue with importing or more importantly, exporting SVG’s with Graphic and it creates clean SVG code that is easy to modify, doesn’t need optimising, always works in stacks and also works perfectly in BWD BlueprintSVG.
Graphic has just had a recent big update and introduced plugins and ether are already some very handy plugins such as “set canvas size to selection”. I was concerned that Autodesk would abandon it but it seems not, which is very good news.
Is this the “Graphic” app you refer to? Just want to double check. Thanks.
Yes, that’s it. Should say $29.99 (unless you are outside the U.S. so may be some other price)
Thanks very much everyone! I appreciate your suggestions!
Gary: I think what you write about Designer used to be true. No longer. It’s been great for awhile: at least a year, maybe longer.
I use Designer a lot to fix poor SVG exports (at times) from OmniGraffle (which I use a ton for creating visual models, tables, etc.). However, OmniGraffle is currently on a mission to significantly improve its SVG import and export: and they are succeeding.
I have Graphic 3.1. Where do you find the plugins? For example, I looked for “set canvas size to selection” but could not find it. I see the Plugins menu option, but I don’t see much in it.
The Graphic Plugins can be found at http://www.indeeo.com/idraw/plugins/
You will have to download and install the plugins you want and then select them from the top main menu Plugins tab.
Gary: thanks. There are a few really useful plugins there for me. Okay, I’ll start using Graphic more and exploring it in detail!
A teaching moment. I suggested Logoist 3 because it is inexpensive and simple to use. It also generates .svg files. So I played with that and find I don’t know how you place an .svg file into a RW stack. I tried an image stack, no taker…
What am I missing in my small knowledge base?
I’m sure there are other threads. (And I’m still looking at Logoist 3.)
Here’s Graphic Stack - https://stacks4stacks.com/graphicstack/
Unfortunately SVGs are a special case. They should NOT be, but that’s how it is with RW right now. @1611mac has already pointed you towards the GraphicStack which will let you drag/drop SVGs. And it’s free!
That’s probably the best solution for you right now. At least 90% of the time I don’t drag/drop (regardless of file type), instead I provide a direct link to the image. This means warehousing the image: so if you know how to use an FTP app then you will be in good shape. If FTP means “flakey tomale pesto” to you, then use Graphic Stack. 
Developers are inconsistent whether they include the ability to link to SVG files (another variation on warehousing).
I typically add an SVG by warehousing the image then using HTML code. I don’t remember the code, but I’ve put a template for it in Typinator (keyboard shortcut app) and when I type “,img” the following code is inserted into a Markdown or HTML stack:
<img src="fullURLhere" alt="text description here" width="100%" />
Now all I have to do is add the relevant details.
Hopefully SVG support will resemble JPG and PNG support at a future point, but it’s not there now and it’s a sore point. Sore mainly because SVGs are vastly superior to GIFs, PNGs, and JPGs for graphic design type images (logos, visual models, mind maps). And they are very scaleable (try scaling a JPG upwards and you’ll soon see “jaggies” in the image).
You can enter SVG code using BWD’s excellent BlueprintSVG stack if you want to avoid the need to warehouse the SVG. There is still no support for warehoused images in RW but there are plenty of 3rd party stacks that do offer this most basic requirement.