Help! Photoshopping a shadow into a picture??

Giphsub

Hi, can anyone tell me how to go about putting a slight shadow into this picture? I want it to look like there is a shadow being cast to the front-right of the mp3 player. Or could you point me in the direction of a tutorial somewhere that will show me? Thanks.

GJMPhoto

Wrong lighting
Usually, I create a duplicate layer, desaturate it, fill it in, reduce its opacity, then transform it into the position / shape based on where the light should be coming from...

What I see in this pic though, is that the product is clearly lit from the upper front right...a shadow front right would never look quite normal. Even an untrained eye would pick up the highlighting on top of the product and realize it's incongruous to the shadow and intuitively know one (or both) are manufactured!

I'd try putting the shadow behind the product but visible...it would be allowable. In this case, I'd extract the product to a separate layer from the background (easy to do in this case), then sandwich a shadow layer between the background and the product layers. This would allow you to move the shadow and have it 'peek out' from behind the product wherever it would naturally be visible.

- Gary.

BinaryFx

When compositing or making a montage of multiple images, one has to take care to match lighting direction, highlights and shadows and all that - otherwise things look artificial, even if the scale, focus, colour, tone, angle etc is correct.

Why am I talking of compositing multiple images, when this is a single image on a white background?

The image contains highlights and shadows on the product which are natural and appropriate for the original lighting conditions at capture for this object.

If you wish to alter the original, you would likely need to isolate the product from the background, using a path, selection, extraction, channel mask, layer mask or whatever. Then with a lower white background layer, add a new blank layer in the middle for the new cast shadow and have the isolated product at the top of the layer stack. The cast shadow would likely be painted by hand and have the edges motion blurred, distorted etc.

Edit: Some retouching may be desired in the lower right corner of the product.


Sincerely,

Stephen Marsh
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~binaryfx
http://prepression.blogspot.com

BinaryFx

Somebody may ask...

Is it possible to deconstuct the original photo, reverse the lighting, so that it matches the new cast shadow position?

Yes!

Will this look realistic?

That depends on the skill of the retoucher, their knowledge and the tools available! I have many ideas on this involving separation of tone from colour and high frequencies from low frequencies etc., although they are mostly ideas only at this point in time.

Much easier and cheaper to reshoot than retouch...although anything is possible with the right time and budget!


Stephen Marsh
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~binaryfx/
http://prepression.blogspot.com/

Giphsub

I hadn't even considered that about the lighting angle being wrong! Bugger! I might give it a try as you suggested, otherwise a reshoot might be on the cards. Thanks for the suggestions Stephen.

KenRon

Hi, new guy here...(my first post)

Thought I'd give this a try...

As far as the light source direction, I gotta say I've been working in PrePress packaging for a long time, and I don't really notice flaws in stuff I buy at the supermarket, so I'm thinking the average buyer woouldn't either.

Hell, I didn't even notice the reflections until I read what BinaryFx said, ha!

Anyways... Hows this for a shadow?

If you'd like, here my CS2 .psd file to see what I did http://www.kenrongraphics.com/files/337873730_DqzUT-L.psd