Tip for Layering Layer Styles

I recently attended one of the Chats at The Lilypad. We were talking about layer styles, and I learned a really neat trick. I want to share it with you today.

After starting to experiment with layer styles (beyond just shadowing), I quickly found myself running into a problem. Say I had applied a layer style to create a Plastic look to my layer. (This example uses an old freebie from Mommyish called Soft Plastic Style Freebie):

I'm happy with the Plastic style, and now I want to add a shadow. But this is what happens if I go up to my Shadow styles and apply one: it erases the Plastic styling and replaces it all with the Shadow style!

For a while my solution was to put the Shadow onto its own layer, and then RE-apply the Plastic style. That worked OK, but once the shadow was on its own layer, I could not make adjustments to it anymore. It was a solution, but not perfect.

So let's Undo and go back to my title with the Plastic Style:

Here is the trick I learned from my helpful friends in the Lilypad Chat Room: Hold down the Shift Key when you apply the Shadow style. It will apply the Shadow, but it will let all the other layer styles stay!

So that's the tip: to LAYER your layer styles, instead of OVERWRITING them, hold down the Shift Key!