Photoshop Tutorial: How to Create a Shadows

Photoshop can be used for many things. One of these things is editing photographs, putting people or objects in environments that they were not originally in. However, there are many problems that arise when doing something like this, the main thing being that the resulting picture looks fabricated and not natural.

Adding a shadow can really persuade the viewer that the person or object was originally in the photograph when it was taken. Also, shadows give weight to a person or object if you are just going to isolate them and place them on a solid background, white for example. Shadows allow the object or person to avoid looking like they were isolated out, just cut and pasted.

Following these simple steps, you can easily create shadows and adjust them however way you want to. This tutorial will demonstrate how to create multiple types of shadows on a solid white background. This will allow you to see how it works and can implement the technique to suite your needs.

Casting a Shadow

Step 1: Isolating

The first step would be to isolate the object that will be casting the shadow. This can be done using a variety of methods, some more successful than others. The best approach would be to use the pen tool. Another way is to use the selection tool. However, for purposes of this tutorial, I will be assuming that you will be using the pen tool.

Isolating the object serves two purposes, and kills two birds with one stone. First, by isolating the object you can copy and paste it to the background that you want. Second, the selection can be used to create the shadow.

Once you have the object pen pathed, make it a selection by going to the paths tab, right clicking on the path, and selecting "make selection". Once it is selected, feather it 1px.

Copy and paste the selected object onto a new layer and de-select. Create a new layer right above the background layer. Fill that layer with a solid white and rename it to "white background".

The layer with the isolated object should be named something to let you know what it is. For the sake of this tutorial, I will call it "Iso Object".