Drop Shadows part 2

This tutorial is for Photoshop CS2 & CS3. You need the warp tool.

For creating more realistic shadows where you can make the photo or paper look like it is curling off the page.

STEP 1:

Drag your photo or paper, onto your canvas. I have just used a small paper piece as a example.

STEP 2:

Duplicate it by pressing CTRL+J or go to LAYER —>Duplicate Layer.

Make sure you have the bottom copy selected.

STEP 3:

Then we want to darken it so hit CTRL+U or go to IMAGE—>Adjustments—>Hue/Saturation. I make mine black for this tutorial.

STEP 4:

Now we want to blur it a little. Go to FILTER—>Blur—>Gaussian Blur and choose the right blur for your page.

You’ll come know what is right by playing around. On this small 600×600 canvas I have used 3. But on most full size pages I tend to use 8, 10 or 12.

Now it should look like this:

STEP 5:

Using your arrows keys on the keyboard we want to nudge it a little. To match the angle I tend to use I have gone up and left. Hit up once then left twice.

Then we will warp the shadow. Go to EDIT—>Transform—>Warp.

For this I have dragged the corners out a little. Just play around and try and do it visually.

Then lower the shadow opacity.

I used 60%

ALL DONE!

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ALTERNATIVE:

This is for REALLY curling the photo off the page.

Follow the steps 1- 4. Then instead of warping the shdow we will warp the actual photo/frame/paper.

Make sure you have the top layer selected.

Go to EDIT—>Transform—>Warp and drag the corner up and into the n=middle slightly.

Then I also warp the shadow layer a little.

Lower the opacity again. And even use a little dodge & Burn on the lift.

ALL DONE!