Thread: Make photos jump off the page with drop shadows

If your photos live mainly on your computer, you might not traffic much in real frames anymore. But the virtual frame of a drop shadow that is, the hint of a "shadow" under your image-can add an interesting touch to pictures that you share online. And in Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 or later, you can introduce this effect with only a few clicks.

To get started, open a photo in Elements. Because the drop-shadow effect is designed to work on a layer, you need to promote your photo to layer status. Find the Layers palette-it's on the right-hand side of the screen-and double-click the image, which should be identified as "Background." The New Layer dialog box will appear. Click OK.

Notice that your image is now a layer, as indicated by the name Layer 0 in the Layers palette. (You can change the name of the layer if you want to, but since Layer 0 is the only layer you'll be work¬ing with in this project, that step is really not necessary.)



You're almost ready to add drop shadows. But before you do that, you need to expand the canvas around the edges of the photo. Otherwise, your drop shadow will have nowhere to go.

In the menu, click Image Resize- Canvas Size. You'll want to make the canvas a little bigger-by 10 percent, say. Just switch the unit of measure from inches to percent, and then enter 110 for both height and width. Click OK.

You should see that the canvas has expanded by 10 percent, and there should be a transparent border around the edges of your photo.

Now it's time to experiment with drop shadows. In the Effects palette located on the right side of the screen, click the Layer Sryles button and then choose Drop Shadows from the menu. You can drag any of the drop-shadow presets from the palette to your photo. If you don't like the one you dragged, simply replace it with another. When you find a preset that suits your image, save your finished product.