Realistic Flat Object Shadowing
Lesson 7 from: Shadowing in Adobe Photoshop for Digital ScrapbookersTraci Reed
Realistic Flat Object Shadowing
Lesson 7 from: Shadowing in Adobe Photoshop for Digital ScrapbookersTraci Reed
Lessons
Why You Should Scrapbook Digitally
10:34 2The Scrapbooking Journey
19:32 3Shadows & Behind Your Scrapbook in Adobe® Photoshop®
15:43 4The Anatomy of Shadows in Adobe® Photoshop®
11:38 5Shadowing Paper & Flat Objects
19:18 6Applying Layer Styles to Your Page
22:57 7Realistic Flat Object Shadowing
09:15 8Recoloring Shadows in Adobe® Photoshop®
07:26Extraction with the Pen Tool
16:55 10Building the Layout with Extracted Images
15:52 11Warping with the Smudge Tool in Adobe® Photoshop®
07:10 12Distort Shadows with Wavelength
04:00 13Making an Action in Adobe® Photoshop®
05:01 14Warp Shadows with Transform Tool
03:15 15Warp Shadows with Gradient Tool
03:43 16Intro to the Adobe® Photoshop® Puppet Warp Tool
10:34 17Creating Effective Inner Shadows in Adobe® Photoshop®
09:16Lesson Info
Realistic Flat Object Shadowing
With shadow the leaves first and then we'll talk about that yellow flower okay so let's see what our standard belief shadow does to this paper linear burn thirty five in the twenty percent rule one in thirty not bad it's even it's ok on the other one to the double flower so with this one because the light source is coming from the tip top of the um belief it doesn't give it a cz much definition so I'm gonna break the rules with light sources on this and people can scream at me if they really want tio some people are diehard diehard light source people but I'm not I want the definition more than I want the light source so you have to make sure that you turn off use global light because if you don't turn off use global light and then you change the light source it's going to change the light source for everything here we don't want that let's go back to one twenty and then we'll click off use global light and then I want the shadow to go away break pretty much the opposite direction wear...
on the wrong one that's why I want the shadow to go pretty much the opposite direction that it's going but that's a little bit harsh and distracting so we're gonna make it go up and probably down a little bit and then to make it not so crazy like oh that that leaf is really not working with me we're going to reduce the opacity of it just so that we give it more definition and we don't have to worry about the the greenleaf sticking into the blue background it's not gonna work for me so we broke a rule but it was for the best so let's talk about the yellow flower so this is completely unrealistic um in two ways one yellow flowers underneath the paper probably wouldn't happen in real life, but it's happens a lot in digital scrapbooking it's a really pretty aesthetic to make things peek out from underneath paper, so I do it all the time, so I thought I'd be true to myself and do it on here to however this right here is completely unrealistic, it needs to have a shadow especially since because it would be floating away from the paper of it because there's a there's a flower underneath it it needs to have a shadow all the way down, but they already has a shadow on the other side. So how do we make that work? If we already have a drop shot on the other side, we need to use the outer glow instead of the drop shadow. Now you want to be really careful with this outer glow because it doesn't just glow or doesn't just add the goto one side of your of your object like a shadow does you can control the light so it's light source with the shadow but you can't control the light source with a with a outer glow so this is going to be the more subtle shadow and then you want to use the drop shadow to create the larger shadow. However, right now I have the drop shadow um on this side but I need the more harsh shadow to be on the other side because it would be floating away from the paper on that side where it's over the flower so we're going tio use the turn off the use global light with this one again and we're going toe reverse it around so that it's coming over the flower which looks away more realistic but we lose the drop shadow on the other side so we're going to add and outer glow and we need to change it to linear burn and changed the color tio foolishness change it to a gray and now you can see I have a shadow on both sides but you want to make sure that you always use the outer glow for the subtle shadow because you can't control it. So if I if I make the size huge it's going to make the size huge everywhere and not just in one direction so we wanted to be a lot smaller okay, so I probably will um reduce the size on this one a little bit too just so it's really settled so let's talk about things that we can do to make them more realistic um without warping without going crazy so one thing that's a problem are these brackets they have um doodles like scribbles that go on the outside of the bracket so if you want tio shadow them and you just apply a paper shadow style uh, no, I doesn't work for me so you have to follow a process with things like this on dh or you just leave him on shadow which doesn't look is realistic. So let's talk about the doodle breck it's so what we would dio was clear this layer style is first we need to duplicate the bracket layer so that there's two copies of it and one copy is going to be on the bottom for the actual drawing doodle part and then the top coffee is what we're going to shadow and now if we want to shadow the top copy, we still have tio get rid of this doodling on the outside hedge which when its shadow looks pretty terrible. So, um what I dio is I free and it cause I'm hard core like that make sure your hardness is all the way up so that you don't have a soft edged brush at all and then you can just come in and if you click on the top like if you have straight edges that you're racing, you can click it the top and then click at the bottom holding downshift and it will erase in a straight line or paint in a straight line. If you're using a paintbrush, then I come out here and erase all the rest of this and then it's harder to do on the curves. But this is what undue is for if you accidentally erase part of the bracket, you can undo it. Make sure you get all of these little floaters out here too. And now once you get this all a race you can see that it looks more realistic although this shadow is still way too high. Um it looks more realistic because it looks like the doodling is coming off the edge of the bracket and it's being shadowed the bracket ist shadowing the doodling. So there you can also, um if you had a hard time free handing that you can also, um make sure that you, if you come in here with your magic wand tool, you can click the white and if you hold downshift and click and all the white especially around the edges here you can hit once you have all of the white selected, you can hit command shift I tio took select the inverse and then it won't erase any of the white he'll just, um it'll make it easier for you to not erase parts that you don't want to a race. So anyway let's finish erasing this and then we will adjust, adjust the shadow is not add more to it we're having enough problems as it is okay, now this shadow is way too high because this is acting this bracket is acting like a sticker pretty much so we have way too big of a shadow on it so we will drop it down distance really low where slap some floaters in size small and then you can see that it looks much more realistic and much more um it doesn't shadow that doodle, which makes no sense at all. Then we wantto we would do the same thing for the opposite side because it has do is coming that way too, but we'll just supply this for now you can see the difference it's not pretty, but that could be a problem for some people and we can have a lot of issues with, um things that are more diverse than just a paper object just ah, I'm just a piece of flare just a doodle itself and so you have to know how to troubleshoot and, um just shadow the things that you want to shadow
Class Materials
bonus material with purchase
Ratings and Reviews
Diane
I bought all three of Traci's classes and am very impressed. Even though I consider myself a professional Photoshop user, I learned some great new tips and tricks. Not only that, I found the classes inspiring and it kicked my digital scrapbooking creativity up a few levels. More than worth the money. Easy to watch, inspiring and a great teacher.
L. Phillips
This class was fascinating and moved at a good pace. Scrapbookers these days use so many varied Photoshop skills and are some of the most creative thinkers around. I learned so many practical - use it right now! - tricks for shadowing any kind of object and make styles out of them for one-click usability. There's a bit much of the biography section at the front of the class but I felt the usable information was enough to warrant the purchase so I can skip the personal section. Traci is a friendly and clear speaker, and a wealth of knowledge. She should definitely be featured in more advanced scrapbooking classes AND even for creating vector embellishments!
a Creativelive Student
Awesome class! WOW, I had no idea about the world of shadowing. I just started digital scrapbooking and knew my layouts were lacking something and now I know what...depth! I definitely feel more confident now in adding shadows to my pages and I have also graduated from Elements to the full version of PS thanks to Traci's suggestion. I am headed now to search for more classes by Traci. Thanks for a great class!