Today, I'm going to show you this amazing
peeling drop shadow effect in Photoshop!
It's only going to take a few steps and you're going to learn a lot.
OK, let's jump right into the tutorial.
In this document, I'm working with a Background layer
and a regular text layer.
The font isn't that important, but if you want to use this font,
I'm using Proxima Nova.
In the first step is to double-click
to the side of the layer to bring up the Layer Style window.
From here you can select the Drop Shadow that we're going to apply to the text.
You probably already know how to do this,
but basically you can use the controls here to apply your shadow.
You can also click-and-drag directly over your shadow to reposition it.
I'll place it here on the side
and I'll increase the capacity to about 35%
and I'm going to select the same pink as the shadow
and bring the brightness down by clicking
on the brightness input box and tapping on the down arrow key.
If you hold Shift as you tap the arrow key,
then you'll move in larger increments.
I like to use a darker version
of the surface where the shadow is sitting on to make it more realistic.
I'll press OK
and what I'll do now is just add a few more shadows to this
so I can click on this plus icon to add a second shadow.
And I can also click-and-drag so, I'll drag this out a bit more.
I'll increase the size to blur it a bit
and I'll also maybe adjust the Distance like so.
I'm noticing that I don't really like
the blurriness of the original shadow so I can click back on Drop Shadow
and also increase the size like so.
And on the second one,
I'll increase the Size more to blur it even further.
Next, I'll click on the plus icon one more time
and what I'll do now is I'll move
this shadow to the very top
and I can reduce the Size
and maybe even reduce the Opacity and click-and-drag it closer to the text.
And this shadow is more of a contact shadow.
So let me increase the Size and the opacity just a bit more.
When you're done, you can simply press OK,
and now you have these three drop shadow effects that are creating that shadow.
Now we're going to make it even more
realistic by distorting the shadow
So, that we can distort the shadow,
You need to convert these Layer Styles into layers.
And that's very easy to do.
All you need to do is right-click on the effects icon
and click on "Create Layers."
press OK and Photoshop will create three layers
based on the Layer Style that you created.
The next step is to put them all
into a Smart Object so that we can restore them nondestructive destructively.
A Smart Object allows us to hold one or more layers
and we can apply adjustments, distortions, filters and transformations, none destructively.
In other words, we can always come back and edit those.
But we're going to have an issue and let me show you what that is,
with the three layers selected I can right-click and select Convert to Smart Object.
If I press Ctrl T on Windows, Command T on the Mac to transform,
I'm going to get this bounding box
that is going to cover the entire canvas.
And the reason that's happening is because we need to uncheck one box.
And let me show you what I mean by that.
I'll press Ctrl Z, Command Z on the Mac, to undo.
And notice this icon here to the right of the layer.
That is the issue.
So let me show you how to fix that.
If you double-click to the side
of the layer to bring up the Layer Style window,
I can check that "Transparency Shapes Layer" box.
When I do that, that icon disappears.
I'll press, OK?
And I now need to do the same thing for all the other layers.
By the way, the reason that I'm not right-clicking on the layer
and selecting "Clearer Layer Style"
is that removing a layer style also removes styles that I want to keep.
So, I don't need to double-click to the side of the layer and check that box
and I'll do that for this shadow layer as well.
And now when I hold Shift and click on these layers to select them
and right-click to Convert to Smart Object,
they are now confined to this smaller bounding box.
See that?
I can press Ctrl T and Windows, Command T in the Mac, to transform.
And now it's much easier to distort.
I can now right-click and select that Distort option
and I can move the shadow around into position
to create the effect that I'm going for.
I could also right-click and select Warp
and I can click-and-drag on these points
to make an adjustment to the shadow,
like so.
So, it now looks like the P is peeling away
and I can, of course, adjust this any way that I want.
Also, this is really powerful.
I can create a Split,
I can create a Vertical Split
and make sure that when I adjust my points
I don't affect the area on the right
and I can just adjust it any way that I want
and I can do the same thing on the other side.
I can create these points
and move them around so that the shadows inside this area match my design.
When you're done, you can click on the checkmark to commit the changes.
And since we're working with a Smart Object,
you can always press Ctrl T on Windows, Command T on the Mac
to transform again.
And continue distorting from where you left off,
I can click on the Warp Option again, and I can adjust it if need be.
And all this is nondestructive.
If you want to, you can come back into the letter P
Double-click to the side of the layer
and add a Bevel & Emboss Layers Style to create a more interesting effect.
If you decide to try out this technique,
Feel free to share it on Instagram with the hashtag #PTCVIDS.
I would love to see what you came up with.
My name is Jesus Ramirez.
Thank you so much for watching.
I'll talk to you again in the next Photoshop tutorial.