| Tutorial Title: How to create shadows |
| Program: PS 5+ |
Step 1: Open a new image with any dimensions you want. Insert some text and rasterize it if you are using Photoshop 6 or higher. Duplicate your text layer and rename it Shadow. Move the shadow layer under the text layer. Make sure the contents of the shadow layer are completely black (that is that the text is black). I added a slight emboss effect to my text to allow you to see the shadow and lighting better. |
| Step 2: Move the contents of the shadow layer slightly to the left and down. Apply a simple Blur. Lower your opacity to about 70%. This creates the look of your lightsource being in the upper right and being fairly close to your text. |
| Step 3: Move the contents of the shadow layer slightly to the left and down. Apply a gaussian blur of about 3.0. Lower your opacity to about 70%. This creates the look of your lightsource being in the upper right and being somewhat close to your text. It also makes the light source diffused since your shadow is blurry. |
| Step 4: Move the contents of the shadow layer to the left and down a lot. Apply a gaussian blur of about 3.0. Lower your opacity to about 50%. This creates the look of your lightsource being in the upper right and being fairly far from your text, the light is also diffused. |
| Step 5: Using the same setting from the last step, distor the shadow and you can add depth to your image by creating the illusion of your shadow lying on a plane. |
Step 6: Depending on where your light source is, and what object is casting the shadow, you might want to slightly erase certain areas of the shadow to produce a more realistic effect. The image below shows you the difference between the top and bottom of my shadow.
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