Using A Photo As Its Own Background

Step 9: Add A Drop Shadow

Let's add a Drop Shadow before closing out of the Layer Style dialog box. Click directly on the words Drop Shadow on the left of the dialog box:

This will bring up the Drop Shadow options in the middle column, where the Stroke options were a moment ago. By default, Photoshop sets the Drop Shadow color to black, but that's too harsh for this effect, so let's choose a different color. Just as we did with the Stroke, click on the color swatch:

This will again bring up Photoshop's Color Picker, and again I'm going to ignore it because I want to sample a color directly from the image. I want my Drop Shadow to be roughly the same color as what I used to colorize my background, but just a little darker (since it's a shadow, after all), so I'm going to sample a color from the man's face, which is slightly darker than the woman's:

As you click inside the image, the Drop Shadow color will change to whichever color you just clicked on, so you can see a preview of your shadow color as you're clicking. When you're happy with the color, click OK in the Color Picker to exit out of it. Your color swatch in the Layer Style dialog box will now have changed to the color you sampled.

With my color chosen, I'm going to lower the Opacity of my Drop Shadow to about 40% so it's not too intense, and I'm going to change my Angle to about 130°:

Click OK when you're done to exit out of the Layer Style dialog box. Your image should now look something like this:

Step 10: Reposition The Main Image As Needed

Things are looking good, except for one thing. My main image in front is blocking the man and woman's face in the background, so the first thing I'm going to do is move the main image. To move it, we need the Move Tool, so either select it from the Tools palette or press V on your keyboard:

Then, with the top layer still selected, click inside the document and drag the main image into its new location. I'm simply going to drag mine down a little, so to make sure I'm dragging in a straight line, I'm going to hold down my Shift key as I click and drag:

Step 11: Resize And Reposition The Background Image As Needed

Since the couple's faces in the background are still being blocked by the top portion of my main image, I'm going to finish things off by increasing the size of my background image. Normally you wouldn't want to increase the size of an image because it tends to make images look soft and dull, but since this image is being used simply as a background, we can get away with it. Before I can make the background larger though, I first need to select its layer, so I'm going to click on "Layer 1" in the Layers palette to select it.

If you're currently working with your image in a document window, you're doing to want to press the F key on your keyboard at this point to switch Photoshop to Full Screen Mode With Menu Bar, otherwise you won't be able to see what you're doing with the Free Transform handles. Then just as we did before, I'm going to use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+T (Win) / Command+T (Mac) to bring up the Free Transform handles, this time around the background image. I'm going to hold down my Shift key to constrain my image porportions, as well as Alt (Win) / Option (Mac) to resize the image from its center, and I'm going to click on any of the corner handles and drag it outward to enlarge my background image:

I'm also going to reposition my background slightly by simply clicking anywhere inside of it with the Free Transform handles still active and dragging it into its new position. I'm going to move mine up a little and a little to the right until my background seems to be balanced nicely with the main image.

When you're happy with the size and location of your background image, press Enter (Win) / Return (Mac) to accept the change and you're done! Here, after making my background a bit larger and moving it slightly so it balances better with the main image, is my completed effect:

And there we have it!

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