Trouble removing shadows

[LarryG]

Hi

I could use some help on the best way to remove a shadow from a photo

[IncognitoMama]

First day here. Brand new at this but wanted to play. With a larger file I know I could do better. I ended up selecting Bernie out (magnetic lasso), cleaning up the edges (hard eraser) and painting the background. I realized after I was almost done that I had screwed up on the mike stand and equipment, so I just took it out.

Ordinarily, if there is a "good clean" shadow, I would select the person or object and make a layer of it, then simply slide it over on top of the shadow and color in the background to match. I couldn't do it effectively on this one due to the other elements in the pic. Sorry.

Here's my try anyway

[crazyfly1]

I selected the background color with "color range", jumped it to it's own layer and then filled it with the shadow color.

[lurch]

LarryG - This is one of those occasions when I pretend I'm making an image pretty for a client, so did more than get rid of the harsh shadow. But the shadow was what you asked about. So here's what I did.

First, made a mask. Lots of ways to do this; I used calculations to make a new channel, then used curves to increase contrast. The first two attachments show the settings I used. These weren't perfect, but good enough. Third attachment is the mask. Loaded the mask as a selection and jumped it to its own layer. Added a brightness/contrast adjustment layer clipped to the shadow layer and adjusted the shadow's luminosity to approximate that of the background wall. Reselected the shadow, added an empty layer, and painted the shadow the same color as the wall using a brush set to color mode. Inversed the selection and did the same to the off-color edges. Deselected and cleaned up transitions with the healing brush, resulting in the fourth image.

Now I thought the photo looked sort of strange with no shadow at all, and I didn't like the red lighting, so the rest of my effort was devoted to fixing up color and tone and, most of all, getting rid of the red color spill all over Bernie. And adding back a slight shadow. Fifth image. (Wow! First time I've actually used up my allotted five.)

[smak]

Used pen tool to select and painted pink.

Painted with blue over suit in Color mode.
Desaturated hat.

[Gary Richardson]

Didn't think it was appropriate to totally remove the shadow as the picture then lacks depth.

So what I did was extract the figure, cover up the BG with a graduated pink-pink layer.

Copied extracted figure to new layer and filled with a darker pink, blurred it and moved it to create a new artificial shadow.

[LarryG]

Gary
Many thanks -

Larry

[LarryG]

Many thanks - Larry

[LarryG]

Don't exactly understand what you did but it looks great - thank you

[LarryG]

It looks great - can you explain what you mean by calculations - the the purpose/result expected using the calculation tool

many thanks

[Gary Richardson]

Originally Posted by LarryG

Gary
Many thanks -

Larry

You're welcome Larry, if you need a more detailed explanation than what I've already posted let me know.

[amica999]

[QUOTE=lurch;197319]LarryG - This is one of those occasions when I pretend I'm making an image pretty for a client, so did more than get rid of the harsh shadow. But the shadow was what you asked about. So here's what I did.

Looks awsome, lurch, didn't like the reddish BG either. Looks very natural now, great work