Apple - How does one make screen captures with a shadow?

No, you do not need to. This feature is built into Mac OS X.

To do this, press +Shift+4 then press Space. The selector will then change into a camera icon, and you can take a screenshot of the selected window with a shadow.

screenshot of screenshotting

(I couldn't capture the camera icon)

End result: end product


Actually I prefer NOT to capture with the shadow at all. There is a command line procedure for suppressing the shadows, but you can accomplish the same thing through the GUI of TinkerTool.

enter image description here

Install TinkerTool and then under its "General" tab, un-check the box next to "Include shadow when capturing window".