How to add a drop shadow to an image

Here’s how to use Pages to quickly add a drop-shadow to an image.  This is what it looks like:

There are two steps – removing the background and adding the shadow.

1. Removing the background

First you need to remove the background, otherwise the shadow will be on the whole box instead of the object.

1) Click on the image.

2) From the ‘Format’ menu at the top of the screen, under the ‘Image’ submenu click ‘Instant Alpha’.

A little crosshair target and box with instructions should appear.

3) Click and drag on the backgound. A blue highlighted area should spread over the image in areas that have a similar colour as where you first clicked. The further you drag the mouse, the larger the selected area will get. When you let go of the mouse, the selected area will be removed, so try to select as much of the background as you can without any of the actual picture changing colour. You can repeat this several times if you don’t delete the whole background in one go. When you have finished, either click ‘Done’ or press the return key.

2. Adding the Shadow

Once the background is gone, you can add the shadow.

1) Click on ‘Format’ button with the picture of a paint brush so that the sidebar pops out.

2) Click on the ‘Style’ heading at the top of the side bar.

3) From the ‘Shadow’ drop down menu, select ‘Drop Shadow’. If there is no ‘Shadow’ menu, click on your image and the menu should appear.

Your image should now have a shadow on it.

If you want, you can adjust the blur, offset, opacity, angle and colour of the shadow, using the settings in the sidebar.

Now you have a picture with a nice shadow on it.

If you want to use this picture in a different program, you can ‘Export’ it as a jpg using the ‘Share’ menu in Pages, or you can take a screenshot.