Collage Of Warped Photos In Photoshop

Step 7: Duplicate The Layer

Now that we've warped the image, we need to duplicate it. To do that, with "Layer 0" (the layer that contains our image) selected in the Layers palette, use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+J (Win) / Command+J (Mac) to duplicate the layer. If we look in the Layers palette now, we can see the newly created copy of the layer, which Photoshop has named "Layer 0 copy", above the other two layers:

Step 8: Fill The Original Image On "Layer 0" With Black

Click back on "Layer 0" in the Layers palette to select it. Then, press the letter D on your keyboard if needed to reset your Foreground and Background colors so black becomes your Foreground color (white becomes your Background color). You can see your current Foreground and Background colors in the color swatches near the bottom of the Tools palette (the swatch in the top left is the Foreground color and the one in the bottom right is the Background color):

Then, with "Layer 0" selected, use the keyboard shortcut Shift+Alt+Backspace (Win) / Shift+Option+Delete (Mac) to fill the image on the layer with black. You won't see anything happen in your document window and that's because the image on "Layer 0 copy" is blocking what we've done on "Layer 0" below it from view, but if we look at the preview thumbnail for "Layer 0" in the Layers palette, we can see that the image has in fact been filled with black:

Step 9: Create A Drop Shadow With The Warp Tool

We're going to use the Warp Tool once again, this time to create a drop shadow effect for our image using the area we just filled with black. With "Layer 0" still selected, I'm going to access the Warp Tool the same way I did before, by pressing Ctrl+T (Win) / Command+T (Mac) to bring up the Free Transform handles and then clicking on the Warp Icon in the Options Bar. I want the light to appear to be coming from the top left, which means my shadow needs to appear along the bottom right of the image. So with my Warp Tool active, I'm going to bend and reshape the black-filled area so it sticks out from under the right and bottom of the image. Again, we're not going for absolute realism here, so feel free to exaggerate things a little:

Press Enter (Win) / Return when you're done to accept and apply the changes.

Step 10: Apply The Gaussian Blur Filter

We need to blur the edges of our shadow a little, so go up to the Filter menu at the top of the screen, choose Blur, and then choose Gaussian Blur. When the Gaussian Blur dialog box appears, I'm going to enter a Radius value of about 6 pixels to blur the edges of my shadow slightly. Again, you may need to enter a higher value if you're using a high resolution image:

Click OK to exit out of the dialog box when you're done.

Step 11: Lower The Opacity Of The Layer

We've warped our shadow into shape with the Warp Tool and blurred out the edges, but our shadow is much too intense at this point. To fix that, go up to the Opacity option in the top right of the Layers palette and lower the layer's opacity to around 60%:

Here's my image after lowering the opacity of the shadow: