1) Duplicate the object layer, reduce its brightness and contrast, and place it below the object layer to create a shadow. 2) Distort the shadow layer by dragging its top handle to make the shadow fall to the left and below the object. Add a Gaussian blur to soften the shadow's edges. 3) Add a layer mask to the shadow layer and draw a gradient from white to black to make the shadow fade from dark to light as it extends away from the object. Adjust the shadow position for realism.

1. Cast Shadow

2. Step 1 You must start by cutting out the background from the object that you want to cast the shadow. When you have done this you duplicate the layer that you have the object in, call it shadow to make it easy to work with. Place the shadow layer underneath the object layer.

3. Step 2 Select the shadow layer and go to Image > Adjustments > Brightness / Contrast , set them both to -100 as displayed in the image and hit ok. Change the shadow layer opacity to around 40%.

4. Step 3 Now go to Edit > Transform > Distort your shadow should now have 6 handles, click and drag the upper middle handle. Drag the handle to the left and down to create the effect that we want. To make the shadow a bit fuzzy go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and use a Radius of something like 4 pixels .

5. Step 4 Now you want the shadow to become lighter the further away from the object it is. To achieve this effect you need to add a Layer Mask to the shadow layer. Select the shadow layer and press the Add layer mask button at the bottom of the Layers Window . Use the Gradient Tool to draw a gradient from white to black, where black should be in the position where you want the shadow to be the softest.

6. Final Step You might have to move the shadow to make it look like it origins from the object, when you have aligned it perfect to the object you are done and it could look like the image you can see to the right.