Perspective Shadow
Create a colour image and put some text on it. For this
example I'm using a light blue background and some yellow text.
The text isn't very clear but that's ok as there will be a
shadow behind it.
Now we want to make a copy of this layer. Drag the layer to
the new layer icon to create a copy (see pic - no. 1). Then
click on 'eye' to turn of the layer at the top. Then Click on
the layer above the background so it is selected (highlighted
blue).
Now we want to turn the selected layer all black to create a
shadow. First lets render the layer (if your using Photoshop 5.0
or earlier you can ignore this step). Select Layer -> Type
and choose Render layer. Now select Image -> Adjust and then
Hue/Saturation (or Ctrl+U). Turn the lightness all the way down
and click ok.
Press M to select the Marquee tool (or click the tool in the
toolbar). Then right click on the black text and select 'Free
Transform', this should display the image handles. Right click
again and select 'Distort' from the pop-up menu. Drag the top
right and top left handles to skew the image for the shadow.
Press Enter to complete the change when done.
If you want the shadow going directly behind the
text but bring the two top corners towards each other. Or you can
the shadow disappearing straight being the text.
Select Filter -> Blur and select Gaussian blur.
Choose a blur level of about 2.5. Click ok.
Now we want to fade the shadow the further it gets
away from the text. To do this we are going to use a Quick Mask. So
Select the quick mask button (see pic no.1) or press Q for the
keyboard shortcut. Then select the Gradient Fill tool (see pic
no.2).
Now we want to make a mask such that the tops of the
shadow text are starting to fade out. To do this click and drag
upwards starting at about the bottom of the text and dragging to the
top of the text. You should get something like:
No press Q to turn off quick mask mode, which will
result in a selection on the image (without the red). Press Delete
to remove the selection and then Ctrl+D to remove the selection.
This will (hopefully) have the shadow now fading out, like this:
Select Filter -> Other and select Offset. We want
to move the shadow up 3 pixels so enter -3 in the vertical field.
This moves the shadow so the results of the blur don't show at the
bottom of the text.
Turn on the original text layer by clicking on the
Eye that we used to turn if off in step 2. And Bingo - a nice
shadow.
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