sunglass product drop shadow techniques

[jjdewitt]

Hi,

I'm looking for any technique recommendations to create realistic and high quality black drop shadows for sunglasses. Please see attached for reference.

Any assistance would be appreciated. Thanks.

Josh

[Wolfman]

Not sure what look you want as far as the shadow is concerned, but here's one example. Duplicate layer,select( magic wand) the background, delete the background and use the layer style at the bottom 2nd from the left in the layer window and choose drop shadow and adjust to taste and flatten when finished to your liking.

[Der_W]

I'd just select the different parts of the sunglasses, save them, create a 50% gray layer for each one inside of a group set to "Multiply" and then transform each of the parts individually.

Now reload your selection and set it as a mask for the group.
Maybe give the glasses a little more density (50% gray again in this case, but you can vary of course).
Maybe give the individual masks a little feather (I used 1px for all the masks but the group's mask in this case).

I've uploaded the PSD file for you in case you're interested: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7124285/Fore...PRO/shadow.psd

[nebulaoperator]

I would do two duplicate layers three layers in total. Middle with shadow(drop shadow) and on top the original duplicated. then apply mask hide all on top layer and with white brush wipe away unwanted. Jonas version looks a bit more spread out mine is little shorter.

[Crapaud]

I'd use 3 layers: Original, drop shadow and glasses.On the middle layer select the glasses and fill with black. Blur to taste and then apply free transform/distort and liquify to shape the shadow. Adjust opacity to get the right density of shadow.

[Repairman]

I made a layer of the black silhouette of the spex (magic wand is sufficient in this case) and warped it into shape behind a layer of the 'real' spex. In reality you only need to get the foreground arm sorted the other shads are airbrushed by eye. I always use three opacities for my shadows, based on the original silhouette, grading from near black to pale outer edge and at some point the object color for better integration. You may find it easier to remove shadow to create the shape rather than building up the shadow.

[Heretic]

try putting a pair of sunglasses on a white table and see how it looks, that is the best way to start.

make sure the shadow has a grounding shadow and some soft areas like Repairman's to be realistic.