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By Elvis
Pressed-Leaf
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 How
To Weed-Up Your Own Pics: Step 9 |
 Adding
A Shadow And Highlights...
Adding a shadow
and highlights can give your objects a subtle effect of realism and depth.
But sometimes it works and sometimes it don't.
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Back To The
Effects Menu For A Shadow...
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Before adding
your shadow, take a look at your original pic's shadows and lighting. Take
note of which direction the light is coming from and hence which directions
the shadows naturally fall and try to mimic this with your own shadows.
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With editing focus
still on layer 1 (the bong) click on the Effects
menu and select the Drop Shadow effect.
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Notice the slider
adjustments for Vertical and Horizontal positioning as well as Opacity
and Blur. You will also see a color selector to select the color of your
shadow.
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First you'll need
to select a color for your shadow-but regular old black just doesn't always
look right. A trick I like to to is to click on the color
selector, which automatically will activate
the Color Dropper
tool. Then using the original background image, I try to find a real shadow
that's present near my pasted in object and select this as the color for
the objects shadow. This usually produces a very realistic and natural
shadow which blends in nicely with the pics original lighting and shadows.
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Once you have
your shadow color selected, align your shadow with the Vertical
and Horizontal sliders until it's where you
want it.
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Next, adjust the
Opacity
and Blur sliders.
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Less Is More...
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*Hint*Try
not to overdo the shadow effect. You're looking for a very subtle effect
and most of the time the shadow might only be barely perceptabowl to the
eye-as are many of the other things you do to the picture. Sometimes a
shadow effect just doesn't work at all for the image no matter what you
do. Overall, its a combination of these subtle effects and edits that give
your picture as a whole some realism.
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OR Try The
Retouch Tool...
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If the shadow
effect just doesn't cut it, no matter what the adjustments, sometimes you
can add a shadow to your object manually with the Retouch
tool. Just ensure you are working on the correct layer and select the Retouch
tool from your toolbar icons. Under the tool's Options>Retouch
Mode, select either the Soften
mode or Darken RGB
mode. Adjust the opacity, hardness and Brush Size of the retouch tool to
a minimal and place your shadow. The softening mode will blend and soften
neighboring pixels-which produces a nice subtle shadow effect, and the
Darken RGB mode will darken all Red green and Blue pixels (essentially
all the colors it encounters) but keep in mind both work best on small
areas only. You can also try using the Lightness
Down mode to get the desired effect.
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*Hint*Using
the above retouch modes are great for adding a very subtle shadow around
fingers and hands where they meet with bongs and bowls-especially
where fingers wrap around the backsides of bongs and you need to
add an inkling of a shadow through the translucent bong.
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Adjust The
Lighting If Necessary...
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If your object
is relatively dark in relation to your background image, then you might
want to first try to get this equalized with the Automatic
Color, Contrast and Saturation effects found under the effects menu.
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Next you can go
to the Effects
menu and select Illumination Effects. Here you'll find many somewhat complex
lighting options-which are too many to discuss here. Just play with the
different lighting effects and get familiar with them. Most of the time
they are too strong for what you usually need to accomplish, but they are
put to good use many times.
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If none of these
adjustments work, or you just feel like you still need to add some small,
subtle lighting effects, then you might accomplish this using the Retouch
tool much like adding a shadow manually as described above. Under the tool's
Options>Retouch
Mode menu, just select the Lighten
RGB or
Lightness
Up mode and give 'em a shot.
 
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