sorry in advance if this is a dumb question but I've done a few searches and I'm just not finding the answer which is frustrating as well...

I'm interested in layer styles - .asl's - that you can apply over text to make it, like, plaid or sparkly or whatever...

Can someone please explain how you use these?

thanks,

Julia

Take a look in the Photoshop help files - for CS2, for example, look for Help Topics -> Layers -> Layer effects and styles.

This will show you how to use the layer styles. You can find lots more of them on the net, either for free or purchase - several vendors here on Rendo have some excellent styles. 3Dillusions, Dreamwarrior, and fractalartist01 all have the sort of thing you might be looking for.

Do you have asl file that you want to load in PS. If yes, go to Window-Styles. Then click on little arrow in styles palette, next click on Load styles. Navigate to the asl file on your HDD and open it. They will show bellow your default styles.

To use them, write the text and click on style. It will apply to the text, you can then modify each layer effect used by double clicking on it under the text layer.

Hope this helps :)

Tihomir

thanks!!!   I was in totally the wrong spot - - I was thinking it was somewhere in layer styles - didn't even know about the part under windows....  will go try it now!

thanks again!

No prob. :)

Tihomir

briliant!  thanks!!!

I use styles extensively, especially for text. I love styles. I also love that you can often modify them after they're applied, especially the size of the textures used in many of them, which helps. You can go to Adobe Studio Exchange to find a lot of styles. Good stuff. Haven't learned to make my own yet, but I can usually find one to do what I want there.

how do you modify them? 

Arrow is next to the layer you applied style. Click on it and you will see all the effects used to create style. Double click on any of them and you will get options to tweak, from there you can tweak the rest of effect used in that style. You can add or remove effect(s) from that style :)

Tihomir

Usually, once you've applied a style, you'll see in your layers palette the style as applied. When you open that up it will also show you some of the various modifiers that have been applied. By clicking on that modifier you wish to change, it should bring up it's properties. This is useful especially when it comes to styles that use textures, as it allows you to shrink or enlarge the texture as applied in order to better fit the text or object the style is applied to.