Have you ever wished you could select an object’s shadow from one image and drag into another one? But you don’t know how to just grab the shadow without grabbing the background? Well… where there is a will, there is a way!! For this “Creating Shadows” post, I’m going to share a really neat method for grabbing an object’s cast shadow off of its background and actually moving it to your new image.
Wait… What’s a cast shadow?
There are three types of shadows: contact shadows (which we talked about yesterday), cast shadows and surface shadows. Today I’m focusing on creating an object’s cast shadow, which is the darker gradient created when your object or model is between your light source and another object. An object’s cast shadow is typically not as intense as an object’s contact shadow. If you have no clue what the heck I’m talking about, you can catch up by viewing the previous blog posts about creating shadows here… 🙂 1. It’s in the Shadows, 2. When you hit a brick wall, 3. Point of contact…
As we saw yesterday, contact shadows are 100% black and only a few pixels wide. However, cast shadows actually start from your contact shadow and move outward. They will start out 100% black and get fainter the further the shadow gets from the object/model.
Enough already… Show me this mind-blowing technique!
When you are capturing elements for your concept, sometimes you can select objects WITH their shadows and move both of them into your new composite, which saves you from having to hand draw them in. I learned this method while reviewing a video tutorial by Andrei Oprinca from psdbox.com. This technique could be used for so many things: from copy and pasting reflections in glass, to copy and pasting cast shadows…Which is what we are focusing on today! Thank you Andrei for the brilliant technique!
Keep learning and keep #SharingItForward!
Caroline
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This is wonderful! I have always wondered how to achieve this look regarding shadows because it is NOT easy to do! Thanks for this! I look forward to more shares 🙂
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