Add a Shadow to an Image in SwiftUI

Written by Team Kodeco

Adding shadows to images can add depth and dimension to your user interface. In SwiftUI, you can add a shadow to an image using the shadow modifier.

Here’s an example of how to add a shadow to an image in SwiftUI:

struct ContentView: View {
  var body: some View {
    Image("CoolCat")
      .resizable()
      .aspectRatio(contentMode: .fit)
      .frame(width: 200, height: 200)
      .shadow(radius: 10)
  }
}

Note: If you want to try out the examples, you can download an archive of all the images used in this section here.

The preview should look as follows:

In this example, we are adding a shadow to an image of a cat. The resizable modifier allows the image to be scaled to fit the frame, which we set to width and height of 200. .aspectRatio(contentMode: .fit) preserves the image’s original aspect ratio. The shadow modifier adds a shadow with a radius of 10 points to the image.

Customizing Shadow Color and Radius

You can also customize the shadow by changing the color, opacity, and offset using additional parameters in the shadow modifier. Here’s an example of how to customize the shadow:

struct ContentView: View {
  var body: some View {
    Image("BirdDrinks")
      .resizable()
      .aspectRatio(contentMode: .fit)
      .frame(width: 300, height: 300)
      .shadow(color: .gray, radius: 20, x: 0, y: 2)
  }
}

The preview should look as follows:

Here’s what this code does:

• Image("BirdDrinks") creates an Image view with an image named BirdDrinks. The name refers to an image asset that should exist in your project.

• .resizable() makes the image able to be resized. Without this, the image would be displayed at its original dimensions.

• .aspectRatio(contentMode: .fit) ensures that as the image resizes, it maintains its original aspect ratio (the ratio of its width to its height). The .fit parameter means the image will be scaled to fit within its given bounds while maintaining its aspect ratio. As a result, the entire image will be visible without any clipping.

• .frame(width: 300, height: 300) sets the dimensions of the frame around the image to a width and height of 300 points. The image will be resized to fit these dimensions, following the rules established by the previous .aspectRatio(contentMode: .fit) modifier.

• .shadow(color: .gray, radius: 20, x: 0, y: 2) adds a shadow effect to the image. The shadow color is gray, its blur radius is 20 points and it’s offset by two points in the vertical direction (no offset in the horizontal direction as x is 0).

Adding shadows to images in SwiftUI is a simple way to enhance the user interface of your app. The shadow modifier can be customized with different parameters to achieve the desired effect.