Cast a Realistic Shadow Tutorial

(beginner to intermediate level)

When a drop shadow just won't do it. You can create a realistic looking cast shadow effect using a combination of gradients, and blend modes.

Start	Finished shadow with added background

Step 1: Select the Object

Start with a picture of an object (in this case Charlie the Golden Retriever) that is on a layer by itself. If you need help removing the background from an object visit our Photoshop Extract Filter tutorial. If you want to follow along with this tutorial you are welcome to download golden-start.psd, otherwise choose an image you would like to work with.

Select the objects shape by Ctrl-clicking (Win) or Cmd-clicking (Mac) on the layer thumbnail in the Layers palette. All non-transparent pixels on the layer will be selected.

Step 2: Create a New Layer

Click on the new layer icon at the bottom of the layers palette.

Drag the new layer below the one with your object on it. Your selection border should still be active.

Step 3: Fill Selection with Black

Make sure you are working in your newly created layer not the one with your original object. Click on the default color icon in the toolbox to return your colors to their default setting.

Then use the paint bucket tool to fill the shape with black. Or if you like to use hot keys (as long as the selection is still active) you can Alt + Del (Win) or Opt + Del (Mac) to fill the Selection area with the foreground color.

Step 5: Distort Shape

With your filled selection still selected choose Edit > Free Transform or Ctrl + T (Windows) or Cmd + T (Mac) to Free Transform. Once the transform handles appear around your selection place your cursor over the middle top transform handle and just barely start to drag - then hold down the Ctrl key (Windows) or Cmd key (Mac) this will allow you to skew the selection. Drag the cursor to the left to skew the selection.

Click the commit button on the Control Palette when you are happy with the new shape of your shadow.

Tip: You can distort the shape by clicking on one of the corner transformation handles and then holding down the Ctrl key (Windows) or Cmd key (Mac) to move one corner independently.

Step 6 - Fill Selection with Gradient

Choose a foreground to background gradient and then select the gradient tool from the toolbox (it is grouped with the Paint Bucket).

Click and drag accross the selection to fill with the gradient.

Step 7: Blur the Shadow

To soften the edges of our shadow choose Filter > Blur > Guassian Blur and choose a Radius value of around 1.4 pixels

Step 8: Floating a shadow over a coloured background

We need to start by copying a background image and pasting it into our photoshop file. If you would like to use the same background we did right-click on this picture and and choose copy image, then in Photoshop select your working file and choose Edit > Paste or Ctrl+V (Windows) or Cmd + V (Mac).

Drag the new background layer in the layers palette to just below the shadow layer.

As expected the shadow looks totally unnatural but... we can fix this. Blend modes to the rescue!

Blend modes allow the top color (in this case the gradient shadow) to interact with the colours below it. The Multiply blend mode multiplies the base color (background) by the blend color (the gradient). This results in the appearance of the background darkening by the amount of black in the gradient.

Note: Multiplying any color with black produces black. Multiplying any color with white leaves the color unchanged.

With the shadow layer selected set the blend mode to multiply.