There are several ways of making a drop shadow in Photoshop and this tutorial will show you them all, drop shadows are very simple yet they are used a lot in the design industry and if used correctly are effective.
1.) Begin by finding an object that you would like to add a drop shadow to; drop shadows can be applied to most elements so you can use a logo, text or clipart as long as the object is on its own layer. Once you have chosen your object press D on your keyboard, this will reset yours colours to their default value.
2.) If you have chosen text to apply the drop shadow to, select the type tool and then type your text, make a new layer in the Layers Palette and drag it underneath the layer that contains your text, then name this layer shadow. Hold down CTRL on the keyboard and click on the text layer and this will load a selection around it.
3.) After doing this go to Select > Feather and choose a number and then press OK. The higher the number you choose the softer and more spread out your drop shadow will appear.
4.) Check that the Shadow layer is selected and then go to Edit > Fill > Foreground Colour to then fill the feathered selection with black.
5.) Depending upon the direction your ‘light source’ is coming from you need to move the shadow layer several pixels up/down and several pixels right/left.
6.) Once you have finished this the shadow will look unrealistically dark and to change this you will need to adjust the opacity of the Shadow layer, meaning you make the shadow lighter, do this until you believe the shadow appears realistic.