Recreating a Paper Fold Effect with Shadows

In this tutorial, we will be looking at how to recreate the effect of a folded piece of paper using PhotoShop CS4.

We start with a blank white canvas:

Next, use the Rectangular Marquee selection tool to select a shape like this:

Make sure you are on a different (blank) layer than the background (add a new layer if you need to), then choose the Pain Bucket tool and fill with your choice of color:

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Next, goto Edit > Transform > Perspective, and alter your shape like so:

Now right-click the layer and choose Duplicate Layer. Then goto Edit > Transform > Flip Vertical, and reposition like so:

Now we should have three layers, including the background. Later, we will merge the two shape layers, but for now let's create a new layer. Then Ctrl-click our duplicated shape layer so that we make a selection like so:

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Now making sure we are in our new blank layer, fill the selection with a gray color, then lower the opacity. This will serve as our side of the paper that is in the shadow:

Now choose the Blur tool and use that to blur the shadow we just created at the fold in the middle. You can hold SHIFT to only blur up and down. Now we can merge the two shape layers. A quick way to do this is to select the top shape layer and then press Ctrl+E to merge down.
Now choose the Elliptical marquee tool and make a selection for the underneath shadow like so:

Use the Pain Bucket to fill this with black or gray and then reduce the opacity. Also apply a Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur to get the right effect:

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