limey

Thanks namvet that is just what I'm looking for, you laid it out so that I can understand it I'm a bit thick sometimes with this stuff.
I was going to mention something that I ran into during my attempts at creating the shadow that slipped my mind earlier.
When I was applying the Burn Tool to darken the area it changed it to a more orange tan colour instead of black.
Any idea why it would do that.

namvet

limey .. sorry, don't know much about the Burn Tool. I've neglected it for years 'cos I've never found much use for it.

limey

No problem namvet you've been very helpful.
Thanks

ronmatt

http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/9210/shad9lw.jpg

here's another way

namvet

ronmatt ... yep, that works too [righton] .. and that (imho) is the beauty of photoshop, it gives the 'operator' choices and it doesn't dictate/restrict ... so that the 'operator' can get the image the way they want .... and when they can't get the 'effect' they want, they can come here for help/guidance/assistance ...

limey

Thanks ronmatt, that's a slick way too

erbear97

Ronmatt, Namvet, great to offer members your suggestions in such great detail!? [righton]

So let me follow you example, but this make a different suggestion, which is to change the blending mode of the shadow layer to something like soft light, which will make the shadows look more natural.
Both shadows use 29% opacity.

The other example shows more clearly the effect of soft light; left is normal setting, the black line on the right is set to soft light.

Reg.

Silky

Yes, sometimes softlight, or overlay can give the right effect. This is the case because, believe it or not, shadows actually have slight amounts of color within them. Shadows do not produce color, but light does. Usualy the light source is a certain color or tint, but an object which the light is casting a shadow on is a different color. For example, you might have a natural blue light on an overcast day, and a person with skin tone. The shadow will then look brownish, or tan as well. Regular black, blurred shadows in PS tend to desaturate or washout with black. That is why it looks fake. To fix this, lighten up the shadow slightly, and give it a slight hue. Sometimes different blend modes will work, but not always. I hope you can understand.

Silky

Here is an example. I also added a highlight, but I used overlay for that.

limey

Thanks Patrick, it's a very good example it sounds like there is no hard and fast way to produce a shadow it will require a lot of experimenting with lots of different methods.