drop shadow without object

Basically I have a site I'm working on in Photoshop, it's got a white background that I would like to remove so I can get the transparency. The layer the background is on has a drop shadow on it, that I would like to keep. Is there a way I can keep the drop shadow while getting rid of the white background?

where in the layer pallete it says, background, double click it and make it layer zero. then delete what you dont want and it shoudl just be a floating object, but um you might have to mess aroudn with the save options and i'm not sure it will be that small of a file so you have to play around with it a bit further.

Well that didn't quite work, maybe some images will help :P
The first one has a white matte is so you can see the drop-shadow (layer effect), and the second has a red matte so you can see exactly how the layer is. The white background is what I want to get rid of, while keeping the drop-shadow that runs from top to bottom. I know how to get the image I want (in the size I want) so that's not a problem, but I don't know how to delete the background without deleting the drop-shadow as well.

Pic 2

lol i'm really tired and not getting your problem, right now to me it seems ilek you just need a simple like selecting method to select the certain portions of the whit ethat you want deleted and delete them and keep whatever parts of the white you want... i mean i think thats a fairly obvious and non helping solution...but its what i would do...it would work it seems...is there soemthign that would make that not work?

I don't want ANY of the white (it's in a layer by itself so that's not a problem), but I want to keep the drop-shadow it creates. If I delete the white, then the drop-shadow disappears as well.

I'm also having a little trouble trying to figure out what exactly that it is you want to get rid of...
(1)All the white from the entire image (so you can change the colour of the entire page simply by changing the background colour for the webpage)
--or--
(2)Just that white background underneath the shadow (so the page will appear to be a white page on some other backgroud colour)

It sounds like you want to make that shadow line semi-transparent so that it would appear as though that shadow appears on whatever background colour the web page has. Unfortunately, gif images do not support palletes with semi-transparent colours: its either totally transparent or its some solid colour. That's why you will see it fade from black to white in your image file that you save. You would need to decide what the background colour is before hand and create your images based on the background of the website.
However, if all you are trying to do is seperate that shadow from the white background so you can play around with it then you must make that shadow on its own seperate layer. Hope this helps!

Yes, I'm trying to do #1. I know that gifs don't support alpha transparency....that's why I'm using pngs . BUT you hit exactly what I want to do with your last suggestion (this would make it possible to remove the white background), I would like to have the shadow on it's own seperate layer, the problem is I don't know how to do this. Right now the shadow is an effect applied to the white background layer. Change the opacity of the white layer it changes it of the shadow too, if I delete all the white that I don't want from the layer it deletes the shadow as well. How can I make just the shadow on it's own layer?

Ah, okay, I think I see what you are trying to get at now. So what you are asking for is a way to seperate the white (or shade of white) from your image and replace it with transparency.
No, I don't believe this to be supported in Photoshop. You will have to remake that shadow in a seperate layer with the gradient fill set from black (or dark grey I guess) to transparent. There is a way to change colours in PS with the replace but just changes the RGB index on them not the A.
Oh yeah and just a side note on PNG files, there might be issues with older browsers on them. IE6+ is fine. IE5 is a little sketchy but can be patched. IE4 is pretty sketchy. NS6+ is fine. NS4 has no support. No experience with NS5.

Just wondering, but it sounds like if all you want is just a sliver along the side for use in a webpage, Why not simply make a seperate image maybe 10 pixels wide by 600 pixels tall, using its own layer, and simply place a gradient fill from left to right across the image. Your gradient can have a dark grey or tinted color on the left with 100 percent opacity, and on the right use the same color but set the opacity to 0. Then copy and paste back into orig. document and align it where you want it. It will give the illusion that there is an object giving off a shadow without anything actually being there.

If it helps.

Unfortunately due to the fact that you can only have one transparent "color", you can't have varying degrees of a shadow for example. So if you want that shadow to blend into any background you want, you'll pretty much have to change it every time you want to change your background color.

gjb79's solution would work, but the problem with it is that if you don't change the gradient background every time you change the entire page background, then it would look something like this:



The only possible way I know of at the moment to have the gradient blend into any background you choose is to do it in flash (which supports this...just make sure you have it set to windowed transparent)...just create a long rectangle gradient object that fades from black (or some shade of grey) to transparent. You'd have to use some simple html div-tag layering if you were just going have part of your gui overlap some of the shadow.

Not an easy or practical solution, but it will work. I hope that helps. Good luck on the site.

-Zan

Not sure if this helps (seems more complicated on this thread that it likely is in real life!) but here's an idea...

If you a) have the white part on it's own layer (I think you wrote that), and
b) you wish to keep only the drop shadow viewable but NOT view the white part
then
c) select the layer in the layers palette and adjust your FILL OPACITY to 0%. Make sure you choose FILL OPACITY, and not just the layer opacity... fill opacity retains your effects (ie. your drop shadow remains).
Good luck!

Really...I'll have to try that one...that's exactly what I'm looking for. Thanks Sahavay...I'll let you know if it works

i think this might be what your lookin for

i put it on a red background so you could see what it looks like...my aim sn is primecoreshiz if ya wanna talk and my email is URLi can make it look better but i was just showing you the basis of what it could like so you can tell me if thats the path your lookin for...