Fading side border/drop shadow

[roger8989tt]

If you zoom out and look at the slideshow container on a the website "kriesi.at", you can get an idea of what i'm trying to do. I've seen this effect in many places. However, I can't figure out how it's done. I want to use this effect to create a content area for my online portfolio. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Gaussian]

That's a Wordpress theme by a theme designer, he sells his themes on ThemeForest. You can probably get a similar WP theme with a slider already built into it.

I don't really understand your question though... what part of it do you need help with in Photoshop?

[roger8989tt]

Sorry, maybe I should have worded it better. I'm not trying to create the slider or anything. What I want to do in photoshop is create the drop shadow on the sides of the box holding the slider. It fades away so that the box eventually blends in with the page. I can apply a drop shadow to a layer, but I'm having problems fading the bottom away. Let me know if I need to make anything clearer. Thankws

[Gaussian]

You mean this?

[roger8989tt]

Yes, that's it

[Gaussian]

There's several ways you could do it...

One easy way would be to merge the Drop Shadow layer style with the layer, and then apply a mask a the bottom of the shadow area. To do that simply make a new (empty) layer below the layer with the drop shadow and then choose Layer --> Merge Down (Ctrl+E) and then you will be able to mask the layer style.

If you want to do it a different way you could just draw a thick black line, rasterize it and then apply a gaussian blur to make it look like a shadow, then mask the bottom.

I'm sure there's various other ways to do it as well.

Feel free to post up your PSD if you want someone to take a crack at it for you.