![Download shadow at water's edge picture frame](https://cdn1.cdnme.se/5447227/9-3/2_64e61dfa9606ee7f98e9879b.png)
![download shadow at water download shadow at water](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/7c/08/75/7c087597a769a1abf4b7893eb6bfecf5.jpg)
Thanks to the power of Photoshop and displacement maps, though, I can easily turn that simplistic drop shadow into something more like this: For the most part, the shadows look flat. The lowered opacity helps a little, but it's definitely not the best we could do. The drop shadow appears to be following the shapes of the waves below it somewhat, but that's only because the opacity of the drop shadow is set to its default of 75%, so some of the waves are showing through it. Normally, I'd get something that looks like this: I'm going to be adding some type over it and then adding a drop shadow to the type. Here's my original image, a simple photo of some water: If that sort of makes sense to you, great! If not, don't worry, it will by the time we're done this tutorial. Think of a displacement map as Photoshop moving pixels from "dis place to dis place". In fact, they're really quite simple.Īs we'll see in this Photoshop tutorial, a displacement map is really nothing more than a separate, black and white version of your image which Photoshop uses to figure out how to reshape your shadows so that they appear to be following the natural textures and depths of the background behind them, just like what a real shadow would do. Displacement maps are what the pros use to add realism to images, but don't let that scare you away.
![download shadow at water download shadow at water](https://i.pinimg.com/474x/e7/c9/7d/e7c97d2fc22ba1a3dd16ba1fa39f6193.jpg)
With a little help though, we can turn those plain, uninteresting drop shadows into something much more realistic looking by "mapping" our shadows onto the image using what's called a displacement map. It's fine for basic shadow effects, like making text appear to be raised slightly off the background on a web page, but if you're after something more photo realistic, the drop shadow on its own doesn't cut it. Let's face it, Photoshop's built-in drop shadow effect has it's limitations.
![Download shadow at water's edge picture frame](https://cdn1.cdnme.se/5447227/9-3/2_64e61dfa9606ee7f98e9879b.png)