Drop shadow effect is mostly used in portraying products of web stores and e-Commerce platforms. With this effect, photographers can add depth and dimension to the product and even add a faint glow to it. The shadow makes the product look slightly elevated, almost floating above the ground, making the product more realistic in appearance.

Natural shadow, as the name suggests, makes the object look subtly natural. With this effect, you can cast the shadow anywhere in the background.  This gives you the freedom of enhancing the position and lighting of the product. The object seems to be placed on an elevated surface and the editor can decide where the light is coming from.

Reflection shadows are basically a mirror image that’s positioned below the object as a reflection of it on the surface. This effect comes in handy when you want to photograph a product that’s sitting on a glass surface. The reflection on the surface is slightly faded out and inverted to make the shadow look more realistic and appealing.

Existing shadow effect is when you have to tweak or customize the natural shadow of the object to suit the new background it’s placed in. In this case, the editor has to change the opacity and transparency of the shadow without tampering with its position or depth.

Floating shadows are used to create the illusion that the object is floating in free space. It’s mostly used for e-Commerce products that are placed on a white background. It adds considerable depth to an otherwise flat object and can look really cool when done properly. A word of caution though, if overdone or edited poorly, floating shadow looks very fake.