CleanorTools
Cutout

Add Shadow to Cutout

Details

How to use Add Shadow to Cutout

What the tool does, how to run it, and what to expect from the result.

How to add a shadow to a cutout

To add a shadow to a cutout, open a transparent PNG or an ordinary image, let the subject be isolated, then choose a drop or soft shadow and adjust the offset, blur, and opacity until it looks grounded. Export the result as a PNG, which downloads to your device.

A small shadow makes a cutout look anchored on the final surface instead of flat or detached. Drop shadows suit product shots and stickers, while softer, lower-opacity shadows look natural behind portraits and avatars.

  • Open a transparent PNG cutout or a normal image
  • Pick drop or soft shadow mode
  • Tune offset, blur, and opacity, then export the PNG

What it is good for

Once a background is removed, the subject often looks visually detached on white cards, product sheets, or thumbnails. Adding a controlled shadow is a fast finishing step that grounds the subject without a full design pass.

Because every step happens locally in your browser, this is a private way to polish product assets, stickers, and avatars. The image is never sent to a server, so it is safe for unreleased product photos.

  • Drop shadows for product and sticker assets
  • Soft shadows for portraits and avatars
  • Quick PNG polish for thumbnails and white-card layouts
Tips

Getting a better result out of Add Shadow to Cutout

Specific settings and thresholds, not general advice.

  • The canvas is not enlarged, so the shadow gets clipped at the border. The output is exactly the same size as the cutout, which means a shadow that falls outside the frame is cut off. With the defaults, an offset of 14 by 18 and a 26 px blur, you need roughly 40 px of empty pixels to the right of the subject and 44 px below it. If the subject touches the edge, add padding first.
  • Soft mode is more than a blurrier drop shadow. It multiplies both offsets by 0.6 and keeps the blur, so a 14 by 18 offset becomes 8 by 11. The shadow sits closer to the subject and reads as ambient contact rather than a directional cast. Use drop for stickers and cards, and soft for a product resting on a surface.
  • Pure black at high opacity looks dirty. A real shadow is the surface colour darkened, not black added, so on a page with a blue-grey background a shadow tinted toward the same hue looks correct and #000000 looks like a smudge. The colour field takes any hex, and the default is #111111 at 32% opacity, which is already a soft near-black rather than pure black.
  • The shadow direction should agree with the light in the original photo. If the subject was lit from the top left, the shadow belongs to the lower right, so keep both offsets positive. A shadow pointing back toward the light source is the single fastest way to make a composite look wrong, and no amount of blur hides it.
  • The export is a PNG with a transparent background, and the shadow itself is stored as partial alpha, so it composites onto any surface later. If you flatten it to JPG at any point, the soft alpha ramp gets baked against whatever was behind it at that moment, and the shadow stops adapting to the background.
Limits

What Add Shadow to Cutout does not do

The honest boundary, so you do not lose time finding it yourself.

  • The canvas is never expanded, so a shadow that falls outside the original frame is clipped.
  • There is one shadow, cast in one direction. There is no second light, no ambient occlusion, and no contact-shadow shaping.
  • The shadow cannot be distorted, skewed, or projected onto a floor plane.
  • Ranges are fixed: offsets between -64 and 64 px, blur up to 80 px, opacity in steps of 0.05.
Reference

Terms used on this page

Short, plain-language definitions for the formats and settings above.

Editing & toolsTransparent backgroundA transparent background means part of an image has no color at all, so whatever sits behind it shows through. It relies on an alpha channel and must be saved as a format that supports transparency — usually PNG or WebP — since JPEG cannot store it.General
At a glance

Who Add Shadow to Cutout is for

A quick way to understand who this helps, what it solves, and where it connects next.

Best fit

People polishing product cutouts, logos, stickers, avatars, and simple marketing assets that feel too flat without depth.

Ideal for

Giving a clean cutout a finished look with a fast shadow pass instead of opening a larger design editor.

FAQ

Common questions

Short answers for the questions people usually have before trying a utility like this.

Is the shadow tool free?

Yes. Add Shadow to Cutout is free with no signup or watermark, and it runs in your browser with nothing to install.

Does my image stay on the device?

Yes. Upload, subject isolation, preview, and PNG export all run in your browser, so the image is never uploaded to a server and stays private.

What shadow settings can I control?

You can choose a drop or soft shadow and adjust the offset, blur, and opacity to make the shadow look natural for the subject and the background it will sit on.

Will every image cut out perfectly?

No browser-side cutout is perfect on every source. Clear subjects, simpler backgrounds, and cleaner edges give the strongest result before you add the shadow.

Does it work on mobile?

Yes. The tool runs in any modern mobile or desktop browser, so you can add a shadow to a cutout on a phone or tablet without an app.

My shadow is cut off on one side. How do I fix it?

The output canvas is the same size as the cutout, so anything drawn beyond the edge is lost. Add transparent margin around the subject before you come here, using a canvas or padding tool, and give yourself at least the offset plus the blur in empty pixels on the side the shadow falls: about 44 px below the subject at the default settings. Reducing the offset and blur is the other option.

What is the difference between drop and soft?

Soft mode multiplies both offsets by 0.6 while keeping the blur you set, so the shadow sits closer to the subject and spreads more evenly. Drop mode uses your offsets exactly as given, so it stays directional. In practice, drop reads as an object floating above a surface and soft reads as an object resting on one.

What settings look realistic?

Keep the opacity below about 40%, use a blur that is at least as large as the offset, and tint the shadow toward the colour of the surface it will land on rather than using pure black. The defaults, a 14 by 18 offset with 26 px of blur at 32% opacity in #111111, are a sensible starting point for a product on a white card. Wider blur with a small offset reads as contact and looks better on catalogue images.

Do I need a transparent PNG to start?

No. If you upload an ordinary photo, the tool runs the same local segmentation model as the background remover, isolates the subject, and then renders the shadow behind it. If you upload a transparent PNG that is already more than 2% clear, it skips the model and shadows the cutout you already have.

Why does the subject stay sharp even at maximum blur?

The cutout is drawn twice: once with the canvas shadow enabled, which paints the blurred shadow, and once again on top with the shadow switched off. The second pass restores a crisp subject over the soft shadow, so the blur setting only ever affects the shadow and never softens the subject itself.

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