I have been trying to do composite but it just seems very fake. something wrong with the shadows? I dunno what the fault is. what did i miss out?

** ignore the car's side window. didnt finish that bit.

working layer file here 3.3Mb (http://www.andywee.com/pictures/help.tif)

My eyes tell me that there is a LOT of light behind that car so, the light should be spilling out onto the sidewalk and the car should be casting a longer shadow than just what you have underneath the car.

shadow under the car is too harsh...remember it's night time and most of what you see there is uplighting.....soften that shadow a bit and you should be golden

EDIT: who is your webhost?...It is lightening fast.

In addition to the shadow being too harsh, there probably should be multiple shadows from several different light sources adjacent to the car.

webhost 3ix.org - I'm based in singapore but i believe the server is in US. i'm getting around 150Kb/s what are you getting?

hmmm what's the ideal blending for shadow? any tips/tricks on making on? i'm way better in making real shadows than in photoshop. still new to making shadows.

also. if possbile, could you show an example?

corrected the image.
added noise to car,
added noise to shadow
reduce highlights of car.

better? what else is missing from making it a almost too real to believe image.

attached is also the sample of the car before cutout. image the nightmare i had in removing the reflections.

With the shadow I would follow Photo678 & philbach’s advice.
In addition I would match the tone of the car with the background
& make the car windows a little transparent.

Speaking from the point of view of an old art major, there are a number of ways to add depth to a composition. I'd tone down the lights on the building, desaturate the background a bit, and add a tiny bit of gausian blur to everything behind the car. Create a focal point with the car and mimic the way the eye would "see" the picture.

MJ

Speaking from the point of view of an old art major, there are a number of ways to add depth to a composition. I'd tone down the lights on the building, desaturate the background a bit, and add a tiny bit of gausian blur to everything behind the car. Create a focal point with the car and mimic the way the eye would "see" the picture.

MJ


what do you mean by create a focal point?

ok. things i did,
HDR the backfround
desat the background.
corrected the glass tinting and flare.
added tail light glow
pull back as much details from the background
added noise to shadow.
tone down the high lights of the car
blended the car whites with abit of florescence green.

In this case brightening the background would give better results than toning it down. I would be very careful with blurs; the car could look like a “cutout”.

Hey,

the problem was that your shadow was hard, and completely under the car.
There's like 4 different light sources, so there's 5 different shadows.

1 Under the car
2 going towards us
3 Going left
4 Going right, which is lighter cuz the light source is further away.
5 the contact shadows of the wheels

Then also the car is lit from behind, so there's a certain ammount of lightbloom it should have. Light leaking from behind creating lightening on/around the car.

I just drew 5 shadows on 5 layers, and did them at different opacity.
Then I did a selection of white, subtracted the car from it, but feathered that selection heavily, so it went blurry white on the car. Then deleted the leftover white by subtracting everything but the car from the white.

And I made the windows a little see through (20% black on a mask)

http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c98/DaWiel/helpcopy.jpg

Hope that helps

Very nice work DJSoulglo, but the car almost seems to hover.