Cast Shadows in Photoshop (Lesson 47)

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In this video, I showed how to Cast Shadows in Photoshop. I showed how to cast shadows on different situations. Creating realistic shadows is a complex thing to do in Photoshop. So I broke it down into several steps to drop shadows easily and accurately. I explained which direction one should choose to cast a shadow and how dark the shadow will be. I also did some other adjustments to make the shadows realistic.

From this lesson, you will learn How to Cast realistic shadows in Photoshop for both objects and people.

This lesson, Cast Shadows in Photoshop (Lesson 47) is in 2 versions as always. You can either watch the English or the Bangla version.

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Source of images:

Photo by ThoughtCatalog from Pixabay

pixabay.com/en/tea-time-poetry-coffee-reading-3240766/

Photo by darkmoon1968 from Pixabay

pixabay.com/en/notepad-table-decoration-notes-3297994/

Photo by Yuri_B from Pixabay

pixabay.com/en/sunflower-vase-vintage-retro-wall-3292932/

Photo by Artem Bali from Pexels

www.pexels.com/photo/three-boys-standing-on-road-947811/

Photo by jplenio from Pixabay

pixabay.com/en/landscape-nature-grass-field-sky-3127859/

English Subtitle:

Hello viewers! I am Rakib. In this project, I will show you how you can cast realistic shadows on 3 different situations. There are a lot of techniques to cast shadows. Here I will show you casting shadows on 3 different situations. So, let's start with a simple one. Drag and drop this object into this image. Let's make it a little bigger. To cast or drop a shadow first you have to understand from where the light is coming. And the shadow will be exactly on the opposite direction. This is a digitally created image so there is no actual light source. So we have to follow the direction of the shadow of other objects. As you can see the shadows of different objects here are in this direction. So for this object we also have to cast the shadow in this direction. Within this object there is an existing shadow which is in this direction. So first we will rotate it to bring it into the same direction. Another thing we can do here is curves correction because the color and the lightness are not matching with the background. After that selecting this layer go to: Layer/ Layer style/ Drop Shadow. You can also click fx and select Drop Shadow from here. Let's reset it first. And now we can see a very slight shadow here. We can simply drag this shadow to this direction. Here you can see the blend mode is Soft Light. We can change it to normal. Now we can see a very dark shadow. So we will decrease opacity. We can also decrease the distance. And when we change the size you will see it providing a blur effect. Here you can see a lot of other options to customize it more. Let's click OK. So this is the Drop shadow effect that we just applied. So for this kind of flat images using the drop shadow effect we can cast shadows easily. Let's do it on a little harder one. Let's drag and drop this object into a new background. Casting shadow for this object we have to consider the both axis. First we have to draw a dark shadow underneath this object. We will select Ellipse tool from Shape tools. And without selecting pure black we will pick a dark gray color from here and will click OK. Now we will draw the shape. Will transform it. Now we will add Gaussian blur. We will select this one so that it would be editable later. So the dark shadow is added. And another thing to consider is that besides dark shadow there should be a slight influence shadow to a larger area for this kind of objects.

So to create this secondary shadow we will create another layer. And with this color we will draw a line here and will again add blur effect. Decreasing the opacity. I think this amount is OK. And another thing is: When one object is attached with a surface then that attached area will be blurry. So we will blur this edge using blur tool. So in this way we can cast shadows for this kind of objects. Let's work on the final and the harder one. First we will transform it. Now we will make curves correction. First we have to draw the dark shadows underneath the shoes. Let's take a look on the image from the one we extracted our subjects. You can see these dark shadows here. That's what we're gonna be drawing there. To draw those shadows first we will select this layer and will load selection and will go to: Select/ Modify/ Border and will keep it 7px. Now you can see here is a margin which will help us to draw the shadows easily. Let's create a new layer and select the pure black color for this time and draw the shadows. After drawing this basic line we have to make the line thick where necessary. Now we will add Gaussian blur from Filter menu. We can also adjust the opacity. So after creating the dark shadow we will create another layer and selecting the brush tool we will draw a thick line like this. Using this line we will create an influence of this dark shadow like we did in the 2nd image. Now will add Gaussian blur again. So it is done. Now here you can notice the direction of the shadow. So it means the light source is somewhere from here. So we have to follow this direction to create the longer shadow. First we will duplicate the layer that contains our subjects and then will select the layer below and will transform it. This transformation will take some time to do it correctly. This transformation looks good to me. So I will go with it. Now we will click 'Lock Transparent Pixels' from here and will select Gradient tool from here. Select Black and White from here and Linear Gradient and finally Black to White Gradient from here. After that, we will change the blending mode of this layer into Multiply. Now if we drag it until the head then you can notice that it doesn't seem visible in this area. But if we drag it a little more then the shadow will also appear more. So depending on your image you can decide how much to drag it. Now we will unlock 'Transparent Pixels' and will add blur effect. How much dark it will be, it depends upon the light intensity. If the light is very intensive then the shadow will be very dark and if it is not that intensive then the shadow will be slight and soft. Here I will decrease the opacity. This amount seems good to me. So in this way, in different situations you can create or cast realistic shadows. And one last thing is: If you think critically then you can notice that the amount of sunlight in these kids body specially in the face is quite equal but it should not be like that because if the light comes from this direction then we will see the highest amount of light in this kid's face and then this one and then this one. We can fix this issue. To do that, we will duplicate this layer and will drag and drop it above and will lock the transparent pixels. Select Gradient tool from here, it will be Linear Gradient and this time select Foreground to Transparent and will drag from here like this. Now you can see the left side is darker than the right. And now we will decrease the opacity of this layer. So, now you can see the light is gradually decreasing from the right to the left. So in this way maintaining this kind of techniques you can cast realistic shadows on different situations. So that's all for this lesson. If you like this video then you can give a thumbs up and share it. And if you are a new viewer then consider subscribing. See you in the next project. Thanks for watching.