Giving Your Text a Shadow Effect in Photoshop

Do you want your text to stand out and be noticed? Have you ever wanted your text or header to look like there is light shining on it from somewhere? If these are effects you've wanted for your text or heading here is how to do it using the drop shadow feature in Photoshop.

If you have a header for a special page you are working on or perhaps a sign you are creating or most anytime you want your words to really catch attention, placing a shadow on your words or symbols can do the trick. Following are steps to take to get a nice shadow on your text to make it stand out without washing out.

Being a seasoned Graphic Designer I would probably use quicker ways to get to my finished design, but for our purposes here I will be using the menus at the top of the Photoshop screen. As you get to know Photoshop, you'll find that using context menus (right clicking or double clicking on a tool) or using palettes for the steps in creating your project can be valuable time-savers.

Open a new document in Photoshop.
Name your document and size it to whatever you wish. 8.5 x 11 will work fine.

Select the type tool (the button showing the Capital "T" on it ) and type in your text.
After typing in your text, highlight your text (or double click it in the layers palette.) Click on the fonts list above the document. (or you can use the character style palette). Choose your font and size of font. After you've chosen your font and size of font and your statement looks typographically how you want it, click on the "move tool" at the top of your tool palette and then go to "layer" and click on that.

Select > Layer Style > Drop Shadow
Here in the Drop Shadow dialogue box are several variations on the drop shadow. You can change opacity, distance, size and etc. If you have the "preview" box checked you can view the changes you make to your text as you make them. A good basic drop shadow that I use is usually about 45 to 50 opacity. I usually use a variation of the same color of the text. If you have black text your shadow would be a lighter gray color after changing the opacity. Size is usually the same as the text, however sometimes you may want a different look or attitude. Adding distance is fun especially when you see that you can create "floating" words. Experiment a little with the different variations until you see something you like.

After you are done with the drop shadow dialogue and have come up with the shadow you like, take a look on the left side of the box before you hit OK. Conveniently listed there is all the layer effects you can use to enhance your unrasterized text.(See below) Basically by double clicking on each of these you can apply new effects to your typographic project. If the box to the left of the layer effect is checked (such as "outer glow") then it will be applied to the text.

Flatten Layers
Text in Photoshop is created using it's own layer, so when you are done and would like to use your image in other projects it'll save a lot of space on your hard drive (and ease future printer's headaches!) if you "flatten your image" before you save it as a tif., or JPG. etc. Usually a pop-up window will warn you to do so if you already haven't. Just make sure you are done editing your piece and then click under >layers>flatten image.

Note: if this text is part of a larger project that requires many other layers, there wouldn't be a need to flatten anything unless you are finished or you want to do more with your text that would require it to be rasterized. (Made into a paintable image, no longer editable).

That's it! Now you have a nice drop shadowed statement to grab the attention of your audience.