 REALISTIC SHADOW - using the FREE TRANSFORM & WRAP MODE |
First of all, open a new document :
and draw a rectangle with the RECTANGLE TOOL :
Then RASTERIZE the layer with the pop up menu of the layer menu
Copy this shape , put it under the white one and fill it with black clip
I move it with the MOVE TOOL just to show it to you.
Before, you have to choose the direction of the light.
I (almost) always consider that the light come from the top left, as if it was the lamp in front of my desk that bring the light.
Select the black shape by clicking on the layer in the layer and select FREE TRANSFORM in the EDIT MENU.
Some squares will appear at each angle of your shape and in the middle of each side !! VERY USEFUL, you will see !!
If you select the bottom right angle square and click/ keep the CTRL key you could distort the shape, here I exaggerate the angle slightly.
Now you will use the WARP MODES to transform your shape : click on the icon in the menu bar to select it.
Now you see more points around the shape, round ones, it's to warp your shape more efficiently.
You could round the straight line as in the clip
and distort it as in the clip
Now keep in mind the starting image, we want realistic shadows under a slightly distorted photo.
Some point of the photo are on the table, the angles are slightly distorted and elevated.
The shadows of these different points are not the same, thin for the points on the table, bigger for the sur-elevated points.
So lets play with the shadow shape to obtain something realistic.
Now, we could play with the blending options
I add a layer under the shadow one, apply a pattern overlay to show you how the blending option reacts to the manipulations.
I add a photo, keeping a white border around it. I try several setups and choose this one : MULTIPLY - FILL 30%
Here what I obtain.
For the purpose of this tutorial, I ad 2 pieces of tape, these points are near the background paper so the shadow is thin here. clip 16a
After several tests, I prefer settle my shadow with a colour overlay near the colour of the background and blending it as COLOUR.
I test too blending as HUE, sometimes it gives good results, here I think the shadow is too grey with HUE
here I prefer COLOUR. Test several combinations, you could choose the better.
And here is the result. You can add a blur effect to the shadow layer too.
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