For those of you using a green screen, I'm sure you've found yourself in a situation where your subject looks like he is sitting in mid-air...solution, add their shadow to the backdrop. It's actually quite easy. After you have run your green screen eliminator script, you are left with layers, one of them being the foreground (your subject). You can add shadow before or after your new backdrop, but I find it's easier with the backdrop so you can see a true picture.
1. Image 1 is with my backdrop, no shadow...doesn't look as realistic, especially his foot in the left corner.
2. Now you need to duplicate your "foreground" layer. Make sure your foreground palette is set to black (opposite of my image below, but you get the idea...make sure black is on the bottom).
3. Now fill the new layer by pressing Ctrl+Shift+Delete or on a Mac:Cmd+Shift+Del (The shift key will make it only fill where there are pixels aka preserve transparancy) .
4. Next we need to fuzz it up a bit. In your menu go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian blur, amount of 3-5. Note: if your copy layer is below your original one, you won't see much for change yet, so if you like to see it, you may want to hide your original one (click the eyeball).
5. Now you will start to see some changes...we are going to distort the shadow layer. Ctrl-T (or command on Mac) and drag it out, but also use the other edit points so it is not just an exact shape...it needs to distort a bit.
6. Add another Gaussian blur...this time around 10.
7. Now if we want to get really fancy, we can add a gradient to the shadow so it's darker closer to the subject. Add a layer mask. Now, using the gradient tool drag it from left to right to blend the 2 shadow layers (which way you drag depends on which way your shadow is). Note: I don't always like the look of the gradient...sometime the grayish quality does not look good.
8. Now just adjust the opacity until it looks natural. Hopefully the end product was worth the 8 steps!
{ Step 1 }
{ Step 2 }
{ Step 5 }
{ Step 7 }
{ Step 8 }
1. Image 1 is with my backdrop, no shadow...doesn't look as realistic, especially his foot in the left corner.
2. Now you need to duplicate your "foreground" layer. Make sure your foreground palette is set to black (opposite of my image below, but you get the idea...make sure black is on the bottom).
3. Now fill the new layer by pressing Ctrl+Shift+Delete or on a Mac:Cmd+Shift+Del (The shift key will make it only fill where there are pixels aka preserve transparancy) .
4. Next we need to fuzz it up a bit. In your menu go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian blur, amount of 3-5. Note: if your copy layer is below your original one, you won't see much for change yet, so if you like to see it, you may want to hide your original one (click the eyeball).
5. Now you will start to see some changes...we are going to distort the shadow layer. Ctrl-T (or command on Mac) and drag it out, but also use the other edit points so it is not just an exact shape...it needs to distort a bit.
6. Add another Gaussian blur...this time around 10.
7. Now if we want to get really fancy, we can add a gradient to the shadow so it's darker closer to the subject. Add a layer mask. Now, using the gradient tool drag it from left to right to blend the 2 shadow layers (which way you drag depends on which way your shadow is). Note: I don't always like the look of the gradient...sometime the grayish quality does not look good.
8. Now just adjust the opacity until it looks natural. Hopefully the end product was worth the 8 steps!
{ Step 1 }
{ Step 2 }
{ Step 5 }
{ Step 7 }
{ Step 8 }
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