I'm authoring a DVD and I made buttons in PS. To make them pop a bit more, I added a drop shadow.

Fancy my surprise when the black drop shadow is highlighted and shows up white! Not only is this not what I want, it also looks terrible.

Can somebody recommend a way to get a simple drop shadow?

This is my first time creating my own buttons, so I'll outline my steps here:

1. Make a four layer image in PS, with (starting from the bottom) a Mask, the button shape, the highlight, the icon the program will use.

2. The buttons were cut-outs of people, fairly large and detailed. I included a "glow" behind the buttons to make them stand out. (The glow resembles the "outer glow" one can get in PS, which brings up another question -- how can I get layer styles to export into DVDSP? Do I have to flatten the image and then delete the white that gets added to every translucent pixel? I hope not.)

3. The highlight was a border around the buttons (with a cutout so none of the button is covered) and a dropshadow.

I expected this to be the only thing that was used by DVDSP when the button was highlighted, but it also uses a highlight set on the layer, which is why the drop shadow comes out white, or blue, or whatever. (Lowering the opacity introduced other issues, and wasn't much of a solution.)

So, can I 1) turn off the highlight set partially?, 2) Have DVDSP generate a drop shadow, or 3) Anybody have a better idea?

Thanks,

Mike

PS. I'm new to this, but I'm willing to read if someone can point me to the right place. I have the manuals and the Apple Pro Training Series book. Thanks again.