Drop shadows get a hard time in the design world. Photoshop makes it really easy to add a drop shadow by way of a filter which looks, at best, passable and because it’s so easy to use you see it all over the place with out any thought put into it.
Default Photoshop drop shadow
Another way of creating a drop shadow
With a little bit more time you can create a more realistic and pleasing drop shadow effect.
Here’s how to do it
Draw yourself a shape making sure you leave some space around the edge of the canvas for the shadow. Add a nice thick stoke (using a layer style) to the shape then duplicate the layer. Remove any styling from the bottom layer so that you just have a simple shape. With that bottom layer selected choose Edit > Transform > Warp then pull out the bottom left and right corners a little.
With that same layer selected, choose Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and blur it enough (but not too much) until it just creeps out from behind your top shape. Once you’ve done that, adjust the size a bit Edit > Transform > Scale so that you hide the top parts of the shadow behind the top layer.
As a finishing touch, put a gradient across one of the bottom corners of your top layer and adjust the opacity so it’s not too heavy.
Click below to take a look at the source file for this effect:
If you’ve found this post useful (or know a better way), let me know by commenting below.
[...] Drop the drop shadow [...]
[...] Drop the drop shadow [...]
Thank you for the quick tutorial,
Simple as it is I really found this usefull !!!
Thank you for sharing.
[...] a follow on to my drop the drop shadow post a while back, I’ve now decided to have a dig at the ‘Bevel and Emboss’ [...]