Moving selections to a new background

[bkpoltis]

Butch,
Thanks for the shadowing info; it helps! I just need to keep working at it.

Ken,
Your picture does ground them more. My attempt really had them floating. Thanks.

Bernie

[bart_hickman]

Originally Posted by Daviskw

Hi Bernie

The shadow length is up to you. Just imagine where the lights are located or the time of day and sun angle. Then you can get a good idea how long shadows should be. Unless the sun is close to overhead, I make two selections of the subjects. Then fill one with a dark gray, set the opacity to around 75 percent and the blendmode to multiply. Then I use free transform to move the shadow to where it looks right.

I’ll often add a mask and gradient to the shadow layer to keep it sharp close to the subject and fade as it moves away by applying some gaussian blur.

Butch

Excellent job on your shadows! The only added tip is if you use the lens blur filter and base the focal length on the mask, then the shadow becoming gradually more blurry with distance is a bit more realistic.

Bart

[bkpoltis]

I have tried playing with the shadows, but don't know how to 'bend' the woman's shadow on the left side, like Butch did. Here is my attempt.

Thanks.

Bernie

[bart_hickman]

Originally Posted by bkpoltis

I have tried playing with the shadows, but don't know how to 'bend' the woman's shadow on the left side, like Butch did. Here is my attempt.

Thanks.

Bernie

After you warp the shadow down onto the horizontal surface, then select just the part that needs to be bent vertical again and do ctrl-t (free transform) and transform that part back up again.

I decided to have a go at it. I re-extracted them from the original so I could remove the strong-bluish halo caused by the bright backlight. I also re-color-balanced them based on his shirt being white.

Bart

[bkpoltis]

Bart,

Looks great! I think that color balancing on the white shirt really made a difference, also. I am still working on the bent shadow.

Bernie