Photoshop CC Realistic Drop Shadow

Making a Photoshop CC Realistic Drop Shadow is what we are looking for. I remember when the layer effects came out years ago. I was really impressed with being able to click the drop show button and then actually drag the shadow around and change the opacity. Wow. That’s great with text and simple objects many times, but in creating Amazon covers over the years, I’ve found that drop shadows, or shadows in general make an image really come to life. It makes the image look real, and my covers aren’t real, they are made up from my imagination, so I must make the not real look real. A Photoshop CC Realistic Drop Shadow does that. It comes to my rescue.

Below you will see two images. The one on the left is the original. The one on the right as you can see is the one with the drop shadow that I created. It’s just a nice touch in many instances. I whipped this up for this video introduction in a matter of seconds.

The process involves just a few steps. You make a selection and get in object into a layer all by itself. Then, you select the entire object with the lasso tool and make the selection snap to the object. Then you create a brand new layer, and go to “Edit, Fill.” I filled this selection with black. Once you fill the selection with black, then you can deselect the object. Next is the fun part. There is a tool that has been around for years that I don’t hear very many people talking about. It’s the distort tool. You can find it by going, “Edit>Transform>Distort. It’s a fun tool because you can distort the aspect ratio of an object and do many realistic things with it. So I drag the edges around until the shadow is down on the “ground.” Once that part is done, then I reduce the opacity of that layer.

Watch the video. Buy my Book, “What I Learned at Dartmouth.” You’ll enjoy it.