DVDit! lets you do much more to text and button elements than moving them around the menu and changing their size and shape. You can adjust the color, saturation, and brightness for individual menu elements or the menu as a whole. Also, you can give text and buttons drop shadows using an intuitive and customizable tool.
The button at the top of the Button palette is called "GlassGreen." Don't let that stop you from turning it into "GlassRed." Follow these steps to change the characteristics of anything that appears in a menu:
Select a menu and place some text and two buttons on it. Select all three items by Ctrl-clicking them in turn.
Select Effects, Adjust Color from the main menu. This opens the Color Adjustment dialog box, shown in Figure 22.1.
Open the Color Adjustment dialog box's drop-down menu. You have three selections: Current Menu Background, Selected Menu Items, and Current Menu. Select each one in turn and note how the display in the Color Adjustment screen changes. This is a very nifty tool. You can adjust any selected menu item(s), only the background, or the entire menu?background, text, buttons, and all.
Make a selection and move the sliders. Turns out the GlassGreen button can be any color you want. If you check the Save Settings box, you can apply the same settings on other menus or menu items.
Cancel out of the Color Adjustment dialog box. Select only the text by clicking it and then select Effects, Text Properties. This opens the Text Properties dialog box, shown in Figure 22.2.
The Text Properties dialog box lets you make the usual text changes, including font typeface, size, and bold/italic/underlined. It does have two interesting functions:
The Script drop-down menu lets you change the lettering from Western to five other alphabets.
The Color area actually controls the color and brightness. The top slider changes the text color, and the bottom slider changes the brightness.
You can change the drop shadow characteristics for menu items by selecting buttons and/or text and then selecting Effects, Drop Shadow to open the Drop Shadow dialog box, shown in Figure 22.3.
The Drop Shadow dialog box is an intuitive and fun toy. Using simple sliders you can adjust the shadow's characteristics down to its color, blur, direction from the object, and opacity. Selecting Apply To: Items in Current Menu means any changes will affect all items equally, giving your menu buttons a more consistent and realistic look.
Creating Graphics for Use in DVDit!DVDit! offers a nice variety of backgrounds and buttons, but its developers assume most users will opt to create their own graphics in Photoshop. If you do, here are three tips:
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