Shadows?

[CascoGraFX]

The attached thumbnail a montage (you can probably tell) of the bridal couple (taken inside the church) over a "composited" picture of the village of Comrie, Scotland (the day was dark and it was raining). Should I add shadow to give more depth to the photo? I just feel that something is missing. Is there a good tutorial on adding shadow to portraits? Thanks to one and all.

[Leah]

Blimey! That's really small! In fact, it's really too small to make any useful comments on. Can you attach a significantly larger version as a jpeg? Probably there should be some sort of shadow, but I can't really make out the lighting on the background from that picture so can't offer specific suggestions. I don't think we have a specific tutorial on shadows, but there is some discussion of it in Katrin Eismann's book.

[CascoGraFX]

OK - Thanks to Jeanie's excellent advice (and great tutorial) I'm all set to have another go at it. Let's see how this image fares.

[Gary Richardson]

Hi, the light on the couple and the village are not totally consistent, so I've added a touch of shading on the couple consistent with the light direction on the tower in the village. Then as the light is quite diffuse, I've added a soft shadow beneath the couple. In both cases this was done by painting on a new layer, blurring with a gaussian blur, and then reducing the opacity of the layer. I did both types of shading on seperate layers as the shadow on the ground is more opaque than that on the faces and clothing of the couple. Hope this helps.

[CascoGraFX]

Gary - Very Nice!! Do you have a tutorial outlining the steps you used (or is there one published). Thanks again.

[roger_ele]

Here is my take on this, same idea as Gary's in terms of the lighting. I used a blank layer in overlay mode that I painted black on (5 to 10 percent) until I got it the way I liked it.

Along with a soft shadow to the left and adding shading between them (where a shadow would be created by both of their bodies and the light coming from the right) and on his left and the gown. I also darkened the faces a little to the brightness I thought they should be at for the lighting of the scene - since the main light source is not coming from the front in the scene (but it is with the couple before art work).

Roger

[CascoGraFX]

Roger -
Thanks for your suggestions. I had completely ignored the difference in lighting sources. As I said, the day was dark and overcast. The flowers were growing elsewhere but I have found landscaping with PS7 to be a lot easier than on the 2 acres of grounds we have! Thanks again.

Wayne

[Gary Richardson]

Hi Wayne, what I did is pretty much as I described it above. To expand a little.
1. Create New Layer mode set to Normal.
2. Choose Soft Brush with Black as colour.
3. Paint shadow into area consistent with light direction.
4. Blur using Gaussian Blur. (In this case radius set to about 8 pixels)
5. Reduce Opacity of layer (In this case to about 20%)

6. Repeat steps 1 & 2
7. Paint shadow onto grass below and to left of figures.
8. Blur again with Gaussian Blur. ( Set to radius 5 pixels)
9. Reduce opacity to about 30 - 35%.

I used this method because light was diffuse, and therefore no distinct shadow would be likely.

If you wanted to create a distinct shadow try the following method.

1. Copy the Object you wish to shadow to a new layer.
2. Select this on the new layer using Cnt Click on that layer.
3. Fill with black using Paint Bucket.
4. Blur using Gaussian Blur to sharpness or burredness you wish.
5. Reduce Opacity of layer to density of shadow you require.
6. Move shadow using Transform - Free Transform.

Hope this helps.

Gary.

[Flora]

Hi Wayne,

Like Gary, after opening the picture in PS, I noticed that the lighting background/main subject didn't look right...
In my opinion, the beautiful, bright and focused background was 'stealing the show' .... the couple seemed a bit too dark, a bit too saturated and a bit 'flat' in comparison....

I just wanted to bring the attention back to the couple, so, instead of further darkening the couple, I did the following:

• loosely selected the couple and copied the selection on its own Layer.

• Ctrl+click on the newly created Layer to reselect it, created a Hue&Saturation Adjustment Layer, slightly desaturated the selection and refined the mask around the couple.

• Still working on the couple only, I created a Shadow Mask:
  *Ctrl+Alt+~ (luminosity Mask selected).
  *Ctrl+Shift+I (inverted selection)
  *Ctrl+J (copied it on its own Layer)
  ....duplicated it a couple of times playing with Blendings (Screen, Soft Light, Overlay) and Opacity until the selection had brightened up and the 3D effect on the couple increased a bit.

• After that, I slightly blurred the Background and added a very soft shadow just underneath and on the left of the couple.

[CascoGraFX]

Gary ~ Flora -
Thank you both very much for your input; combining Gary's succinct tutorial with Flora's added insight yielded a process that I will use many times over. Thank you both.

Wayne

[Gary Richardson]

Glad I could help in some small way.

Gary