...and quick mask with a 5px feather to get a nice and easy shadow around the element...
This in itself does not make sense. You would already have a selection then press the Q key and then *apply* a 5px gaussian blur.
Quick mask makes a temporary alpha which as you know is a way of storing a selection. It appears in the Channels palette but it's name is italicised to indicate it's ephemeral nature.
If you make a selection, any selection and press the Q key the quickmask will appear which looks like a ruby lith, it's default is to have 50% opacity and red.
You can apply a guaussian blur to it, (just like a channel) and then when you press the Q key it reverts back to a selection (and disappears from the channel palette)
You can also paint the mask on with a brush. If you press the Q key without making a selection you can begin by brushing it on. At the bottom of the tool palette are two buttons that also take you to the quickmask, You can double click these and change the QM options. If you are masking flesh tones you might want a blue mask.
The interesting thing is that you can make a selection, then go to quickmask and then make a selection on the quickmask and apply a blur to just a part of it. Deke Mclelland thought this was a bit incestuous.
If you ever want to make a QM permanent, just drag it's alpha in the channels palette to the new layer icon before you leave QM.
It's also a great way of getting a visual clue to how a feather looks. For example instead of making a rectangular selection with a feather set at 3, you can instead make a rectangular selection with feather at 0, then press Q and apply a guaussian blur and you can see exactly how feathered it will be. Press Q again to return to the selection.
