Master Shadows & Lighting in Compositing with Photoshop!

[Music] hi there this is amish from picks and perfect thank you so much for tuning in to this video today you and i are going to go through the entire process of creating a natural composite with a focus on number one painting the shadows and number two matching the color and the lighting you see whenever you're creating that new composite and you bring in a new element onto it i always recommend that you extract the original shadow of that new element and bring that over as well that way you create the most natural result as natural as possible however to be able to extract the shadows it has to be on a flat clean and nice surface and also the angle of the surface of the old situation or the old image should match the angle of the new surface where you bring in that element right many times this is not a possibility and for those times you might have to manually paint in the shadows and make some adjustments that's what we're gonna extensively cover in this video along with many other essential and versatile techniques so without any further ado let's get started back to my school world of photoshop and if you want to go ahead and download this one and follow along you my awesome friend already know what to do check the links in the description so the very first thing as usual whenever you're creating a composite is making the selection now the technique that i'm going to use to make the selection here is what i've already covered in this video so please do watch it i've already done the selection here to save time so let's load that by going to select and load selection and i have it saved on a channel named subject hit okay i have the selection right there and click on the mask button now we have the subject layer masked out okay let's drop it into the new background to be able to do that just open the new background in photoshop so i'm just going to open that up and drop it right over here at the top now do keep in mind that you can copy and paste layers in the later versions of photoshop so let's get back to the subject document select that layer press ctrl or command c go to the background and press ctrl or command v now at this point if you press ctrl or command d for transformation along with the subject the bounding box will also select its original background because it's masked out and it can be a hassle to be able to have access to the original background and also not have to deal with the additional bounding box areas here's a quick tip right click on the subject and convert it to smart object that way if you want to have access to any old stuff double click on it it will open up another document where you have the mask and where you can get back anything anyway let's close that now also converting it into a smart object allows you to have absolute non-destructive nature you can make it smaller bigger a ton of times without losing quality losing pixel details or anything press ctrl or command t and let's adjust it accordingly we're not going to follow the law of perspectives here like we have covered in this video because it just won't fit because if we look at it in that aspect let's place her next to this man if we do that she would be probably off this height right that looks about right now if you do place the anchor point on the horizon let's bring her to the center right with the same height if you do place the anchor point around the horizon okay just even a little up and if you try to bring her closer she would look absolutely huge it might be the actual case but we're not gonna take a risk we're just gonna place her in a way that we think it's good also i feel she is leaning a little bit towards the right so let's go ahead and just rotate her just so slightly just like this and this looks about right now i know what many of you are thinking that me this might not be perspectively right i understand that but many a times have you ever noticed that whenever we take an actual photo with some interesting lights or if the angle is a little too creative a lot of viewers might think that is photoshop even if it's an actual photo so if i did make her too big it was just not looking natural artistically so sometimes you have to take the artistic route instead of the realistic route to look more realistic now we can start by creating the shadows and we don't have to completely paint the shadow from scratch we can have a rough draft or a rough base and the way to create a rough draft is hold the controller command and click on the subject that way you have the selection of the subject and just under the subject create a brand new layer and you can name this shadow and this is just a rough draft okay at the moment now fill this with black with the foreground color as black press alt backspace or option delete on a mac press ctrl or command d to deselect now you can convert this into a smart object but i wouldn't recommend that because we've got painting to do press control or command t right click on it and then choose distort now before we start distorting it just study the other shadows in the image look at the shadow of this man on a bicycle if the man in the bicycle is of this height just compare it with the length of the shadow so in this case the shadow is about more than two times the actual height so about 2.2 or 2.5 ish just keep that in mind so when we distort it we have to extend it about 2.2 to 2.5 times so she's standing right here this would be one time this would be two time and up to this mark i think we have to extend it you don't have to be accurate here i know this looks crazy awkward but we have to adjust it in a way that looks just a little bit all right i guess we can actually work with that hit enter or return once you're satisfied now it is time for us to actually start painting the shadows and for that right now simply select the hard round brush with black as the foreground color just painting over it and correct little things also to erase something whenever you're working with a brush let's say you painted something right there and if you want to erase it just hold the tilde key the key next to one and once you hold that the same brush becomes the same eraser with the same properties and if you paint over it it's going to erase that thing if you're using an older version of photoshop this might not work for that you might have to go to the eraser tool and erase those certain areas all right so let's just paint the shadow according to the shape of the subject the light is coming from the left hand side so the shadow should fall on the right hand side right also when you're placing the subject do not forget to just place her according to the light if in the background the light is coming from the right hand side in the subject as well the light should be from the right hand side if not you can always flip it let's paint the shadow accordingly right now i'm just drawing the shape of the foot right over here there are some things you just have to guess similarly let's draw the shadow of the other leg let's zoom in and again according to where the light is falling draw the shadows now notice the height where the legs cross now of course there are clothes here but just notice the height so according to that height it should cross right over here as well so keep that in mind keep the angle in mind so what i meant was it should cross right here now of course uh there will be some coverings here so just let that be for now that's just for guidance by the way if you want to draw straight lines between any two points just dab once hold the shift key dab one more time on the other side so that way you have a straight line so this will be really helpful so similarly right here as well just dab once and let's draw a straight line till this point now i know i understand legs are not absolutely straight but this gives us a nice base to work with you can also use the pen tool to draw that first and then fill it i'm just more comfortable painting it by hand if you're using a tablet this can be really fun and by the way if you're not using a tablet you can first make a selection and then fill it now that does look like an excellent base to start the work from now also she is varying some clothes where the light is also passing through slightly so it will also have a shadow but this time it will be a little less opaque in other words a little more transparent so just above the shadow layer let's create one more layer and call it shadow two okay and don't worry about the opacity right now just fill in the dress areas keep that in mind just draw in that these are the additional dress areas because there are lots of folds so we can actually keep them opaque just some areas we can keep them a little more transparent now that they're done we would just simply decrease the opacity see we're creating this brilliant look right over here so we will keep it overall dark at the moment because later on we would anyway decrease the opacity so keep it at about eighty percent now on top of that let's do another shadow three let's set this one to also something so set this to about sixty percent okay now we have additional things to work with and on top of that let's do one more just to add a little bit fold to it and this is shadow four now the reason i created them on separate layers is because we wanted the ability to control this later okay so this is just for the shadow and let's keep it at about 40. so you see that girl shadow going in from right there so let's keep it at well let's increase it 50 and also let's add a few more curls here just to create more realism now of course we have just done too much so let's group all of these shadows into one layer so select the first one hold the shift key select the last one and then press ctrl or command g and let's name this shadow okay now we're gonna change the blend mode of this group to multiply and before we move into any further steps let's just go ahead and save this psd because we worked so hard in the shadows we don't want to lose it control or command s is your favorite and and most useful shortcut don't forget it it's your best friend controller command s picks imperfect composite and there you have it my friend now it is time for us to move on to the next step and that is coloring the shadows and to move further let's convert this group into a smart object by right clicking on it and choosing convert to smart object now if you want the layers back any time you can get it back you can just right click on it and then choose convert to layers and you will get everything back anyway let's right click on it and convert to smart object because we will blur it down the line and probably apply some masks and filters it just makes it a little more convenient so to apply a color create a solid color adjustment layer and choose at the moment any color you want and hit ok hold the alt key on the option key and click on the line between these two layers that way this color is limited to the shadow also to make sure that the shadow is only darkening stuff make sure again and again that the blend mode of the shadow layer is multiplied now we will try to match the color of the shadow with the shadows nearby and the best way to do that is double click on the solid color adjustment layer and just take a sample of the shadow nearby just take a sample of the color so now have a look at the original shadow is it looking anything like that no because of course it's on the multiply blend mode and it's darkening stuff so we need to make certain changes to it at least we're on the same hue but before we jump into any conclusions also we need to decrease the opacity of the shadow so let's go to the shadow layer and decrease the opacity to about 50 percent this is a good starting point and it's also matching with the shadows nearby now at this point i feel that these areas needed to be a little more brighter these shadow areas so we can always double click on it go in here and make them even more lighter so this was opacity hundred this was 80. so let's go 70 on this one where it's 60 let's go 50 on this one where it is 50 let's go 40 on this one press ctrl or command s to save it and now let's get back to pixel perfect composite and now it's a little more realistic so now let's get back to our color and apply the color of our choice now if you really want to compare the shadows you can always go to the background and just grab a little bit of the shadow areas from here and maybe also grab this area press ctrl or command j and place it at the very top okay and press control or command t and bring it right over here and that's just a good comparison to see how the shadows stack up so this will help you to find out whether you need to darken apply a little more color so on and so forth so let's get back to our shadow and i feel this needs to be a little more darker so probably at about 65 okay and now let's go to color and give it a little more blue that looks okay for the moment hit okay now the next step is as you already might have guessed blurring the shadow so first of all let's just remove these references we don't really need it anymore let's come back to shadow now keep in mind this is a smart object so whatever blurring filter we apply we can always change that later so let's go to filter and blur gallery this time we're going to choose iris blur let's choose that now wherever the contact point is we're going to place an iris so let's zoom in around the leg and bring one point to one leg first of all let's make it very small like this just make it flat oval and now let's stretch it just like so now these are the four points for the blur stars and the edge of the ellipse is where the blur ends which means if the blur is at about five this will be zero around these points and gradually increase it to five on the edge and beyond that it would be five so let's bring the points close together let's zoom in and also if you want to individually move these points hold the alt key or the option key click on the point so that you can individually move them so let's bring them very very close okay or you can actually place it at the very center of both the legs and now gradually increase the blur to where it matches with the shadows around it let's try 30. that looks about right hit okay now these areas around the legs are still very sharp so we need to address that as well let's apply an overall gaussian blur by going to filter blur and then gaussian blur let's go with one or two let's go for two how do you feel about that two is okay do notice that the ground is a little bit blurred and her legs are very sharp we're gonna deal with that later but for right now two is fine according to the ground and hit okay once you're okay with that and now that is looking absolutely natural isn't it now of course we need to make certain more adjustments in the coming steps now the ground is not absolutely flat it has lots of ups and downs in it so unless you engrave that in the shadow as well it won't look natural no matter what you do with the shadow layer selected just create a mask click on the mask button right there take the brush and this time take a soft round brush okay with the flow and opacity at about 100 just create those bumps around these pebbles and little stuff on the ground so right here i'm just gonna paint with black and create a little bump see just making that little change makes a lot of difference here's the before very flat very unnatural but just after creating that it just makes so much of a difference so keep those little bumps in mind and create those little grooves inside the shadows to make them look realistic just that little groove we did there here's the before so flat here's the after makes it look natural even if you zoom out it'll make it look absolutely realistic before after see that little change so do those grooves here and there these little rocks now there should be a little bump right over here so let's give that as well i'm just increasing the brush size to add a little bit of that softness there which matches with that of the shadow these little grooves make the world of difference have a look at the overall before and after so here's the before super flat and here's the after just after doing that groove now if you ask me still the shadow doesn't feel right there is something missing can you guess what that is let's examine a real shadow to understand this concept let's come back to the original subject image let's turn on the background if you zoom in right over here you would notice there is shadow of course but wherever the leg is touching the ground there's some additional shadow we can call this contact point shadow if my hand is right over here and there is light falling on it of course there would be shadow on the table but where my hand is exactly touching the surface of the table those areas would be even darker and those are called contact point shadows and that's what we have to add in the existing shadow let's come back to our picks and perfect composite and let's first of all zoom in right over there and just above the shadow color layer let's create one more layer and name it contact point shadow now we're going to use this existing shadow as a mask so hold the control or command and click on the shadow that way we have a mask and click on the mask button right there okay now we also want to subtract the mask areas of that shadow hold the controller command click on the mask of the original shadow alright now we need to invert it and delete it press ctrl shift i command shift i to invert the selection and fill that area with black so with the contact point shadow layer selected it's mask selected press alt backspace so we kind of erase the extras from right here you see that cuts that was essential now let's come back to the layer and take the brush and just first of all let's give it one layer of darkness around the legs just dab once with black like this let's do the same around the other leg as well so we have the first layer this is a good starting point let's decrease the opacity and slowly and gradually increase it to a point that looks okay here 34 is all right now let's create one more layer and this is contact point shadow two this is where we go in and paint in the absolute dark areas we need the same mask here so why not create a group select the first one hold the controller command select the second one press ctrl or command g to create a group and bring the mask to the group that way both of them have a common mask let's come to cp shadow 2 layer and then start painting those absolutely dark areas you can decrease the flow to about 5 or 10 to have more precision here i'm gonna go with two this is like dodging and burning all right this leg is done let's decrease the opacity slightly about 65 similarly let's do the other side might not look like a big thing but when you zoom out this makes the world of difference so here's the before it looks like the leg is in the air and here's the after just by doing that the leg is feels connected but still there is something funny about it and that my friend brings us to our next step and that is the shadows here are so dark don't you think that a little bit of that darkness would also fall a little bit on the legs right so we need to add a little darkness on the subject as well especially near the shadows so create a layer above the subject and also limit it just at the subject by holding the alt key or the option key and clicking on the line between these two layers this way no matter what we paint here it will be limited to the subject have a look see it won't paint anywhere else so here's what we need to do we need to take a sample color of the shadow nearby and just paint over a little bit on the subject erase the extras now i know what some of you are thinking you might say mish this is crazy but wait for it let's do the other leg first a little bit on the clothes is fine too that looks about right now all we need to do is to change the blend mode from normal to guess what the blend mode is which darkens multiply now this is of course too much zoom in and slowly and gradually decrease the opacity and increase it and stop at the point where it matches nicely i feel that about 46 or 50 would be a great place to be and there you have a nice darkness there here's the before not matching at all here's the after now we are doing something you can also go ahead and add a little more okay there you have it now it is high time that we started matching the color and the lighting and the easiest way to match the ambient color and the lighting is simply making the copy of the background layer by selecting the background layer first and then pressing ctrl or command j bring it to the very top above the subject okay also limited to the subject by holding the alt key or the option key and clicking on the line between these two layers and simply blur it by going to filter blur and then gaussian blur let's apply a pretty high blur so that all of the details are gone because we only want what colors let's go with about 200 hit okay and simply change the blend mode to guess what what do we want here color right so change the blend mode to color now this is matching just way too much that it is completely letting go of its original color we want you to have your originality here so decrease the opacity to let's say about 40 and there we have matched so so much so here's the before and here's the after look at how much the color is matching now let's match the brightness and also when we do match the brightness the colors might distract us to create a luminosity check layer in other words to take away all the colors momentarily in a more realistic perceptual way you can create a solid color adjustment layer and choose gray or black or anything that does not have a saturation and change the blend mode to color all right now just under it you're going to create a curves adjustment layer and limit it just to the subject by holding the alt key or the option key and clicking on the line between these two layers or simply click on this button that also creates a clipping mask let's zoom out and darken this overall subject i feel like this matches but also at the same time her hair is getting too dark if you look at the background it's a little faded so we need to take the shadows up a little bit just like this and now it is matching let's have a look here is the before and here is the after we have come close now we don't need the luminosity check layer let's simply delete that i feel that we can add slight yellow to it because if you have a look at the bright areas right here they have a little yellowish tint so let's go back to the curves and go to the blue channel and just zoom in first of all right here and just simply decrease the blues because blue is the opposite of yellow so slightly just a very slight decrease that helps us a little bit and there you go here's the before here's the after now is a really good time to go ahead and take a break and get back to the image we are engrossed in this image for too long that we might miss certain mistakes or that we might not see certain color matching or color adjustments we might have to do to make it look more seamless now when i look at it the background looks a little more warmer and i feel that we need to add a little more warmth to the subject as well for that we're going to create a curves adjustment layer again and also limit it just to the subject by clicking on this button creates a clipping mask now to add warmth let's first of all go to the red channel and we only want to add warmth to the bright areas have a look look at the dark areas rears are not warm where the light is falling those areas are warm so let's zoom in and increase the reds in the bright areas you can take the help of the hand right there just click on the hand and wherever you want to increase the reds just click and drag that up areas corresponding to that brightness level will have an increase in reds this is fine but we don't want it to increase in the shadow area so let's click and drag it down and bring it back to normal also let's go to the blue channel and add some more yellow to it slight bit let's do it only in the extreme highlights right here and bring it back in the shadow areas all right this adds a little warmth to it have a look here's the before looks not so warm if you compare it with the background and if you turn that on have a look it adds a little warmth to it also matches so much with that of the background now with all the adjustments that we have done the darkness that we created from the shadow might be affected as well so instead of keeping it at the very bottom why don't we place it at the top all right bring it at the top make sure it is still clipped and as you do that you will see a change here so here was the before see it's looking very plain and here's the after as soon as we bring it to the top it looks more natural so before the darkness of course this is unrealistic after the darkness you know it's just hands down a lot better now let me share with you one more tip to take the shadow realism just off the charts and that is if you have a look at the cloth that she's wearing at the bottom this is a little translucent this is not absolutely opaque right so what if we add a pass-through shadow so right here the shadow is going in this direction so a little bit of the shadow we can see through her address as well so just above this layer let's create one more layer hold the alt k the option key and click on the line between these two lists to also limit that and now take the brush and this time with a soft round brush just take a sample of that shadow color and continue that shadow that's it also now let's erase and soften the extras and you have guessed it my friend just decrease the opacity see that difference it makes just look at the difference here's the before and if i turn that on here's the after just look at that and this my friend is just mind bending if you want to take it further have a look at this bright rock right there why don't we take the brush and take a sample of that one as well decrease the flow to about five percent and paint that as well see those little see-through things really make a difference now we are not done yet let's focus on the shadows of the subject if you look at the shadows in the background they're a little too bluish so we need to add blues there as well so create another curves adjustment layer and let's go to the blue channel and just focus on the shadows and it will be taken away from the bright areas don't worry about that so in the shadows let's zoom in and also focus on the shadows of the background that will help you and just increase the blues a bit like this okay now you would want to limit it to the subject so create a clipping mask by clicking on this button now once we do increase the blues i feel that increasing the greens a little bit will take away those pinkish magentas tint there so let's go to the green channel and let's increase that a bit see it's making it a little more natural matching that that at the background let's go to the red channel and try to decrease or increase it and see what works slight increase works let's go back to the green channel and increase it a bit and there you have something for the shadows now the shadows look a little more natural i would go ahead and increase a little more blues there there we go look at the overall shadow it's just matching so so much now we only want it in the shadows so double click on the right hand side of the limb and take it away from the highlights by taking the slider off the underlying left from right to left break it apart to make the transition smoother this looks alright hit okay so let's take a look at the before and after here's the before the shadows are just too colorful and not matching here's the after just just so much better but at the same time i feel it's too much so let's decrease the opacity to about 60 70 ish all right now we have a little more originality there we are still not done yet have a look at the shadow of the cycle guy it's a little darker right so we just need to get the shadow areas to be a little darker shadow's on the right hand side so one more curves adjustment layer i know pixem perfect is synonymous to curves let's create one more curves just bring it down also limit it to the subject bring it down overall this darkness seems about right let's play with the greens i feel the green has gone too much so slightly i will decrease it and also reds slightly will decrease that as well okay we only want to apply it on the right hand side so select the mask press ctrl or command i take the brush flow and opacity at 100 with a soft round brush just paint on the right hand side with white again this is harsh and we want to take this away from the bright area so double-click on the right-hand side of the and hold the alt option key break apart the right-hand side slider and take it apart like this okay hit okay let's take a look at the before and after so here's the before look not matching with that of the cycle guy here's the after we are much closer and as usual let's decrease the opacity about 75 would be right now do you think we're done well not yet i feel that we can apply a global effect to just blend and bring everything together and that is something we do at the end of every composite and in this particular example we can easily do that with a lookup table so let's create a color lookup table and let's just slap in our favorite one the usual one that is crisp warm and once you do that this scene just becomes complete if you think it's too much you can decrease the opacity to about 50 percent and there my friend we have our composite do you want to take a look at how it would look without all the adjustments let me share that with you this is without any of the adjustments all right still looking okay but once you turn all of these adjustments have a look it just starts to blend in so beautifully let's take a look without the shadows let's zoom in right there to just analyze and just appreciate the shadow so here's without shadow and just adding the shadows just adds so so much now of course you can take the time to make some adjustments to the shadow there are so many things you can do and uh what if i tell you the image is still not complete because it isn't if you look at the ground it's a little blurry but if you look at the subject's feet it's too sharp so let's add a bit of flare to the subject so with the subject layer selected make sure it's a smart object let's go to filter blur and then gaussian blur let's add about one pixel blur right there i feel that one would be enough hit okay now it's matching so good like crazy of course we want the upper part of the subject to be sharp so select the mask of the gaussian blur or the smart filter whatever you want to call it and let's create a gradient with black at the top so let's draw a gradient so that the upper parts are sharp and only the bottom part this area is soft so you can start a gradient from right here to go and there you have it so only this area is blood and as we go up we get sharper and sharper boom done now on top of that if you want to add some more noise to match it even more that's up to you but we're just doing too much time for us to do a quick little recap first of all bring in the subject of the new background just adjust the position of it and then use the subject area to create a base shadow use distort and this is just a base shadow on top of that start painting start adding and subtracting in this example i did this with a brush you can also use the selection tool to first make a selection and then fill it you can also use the pen tool to create a path then convert it into a selection and then fill it it's up to you how you want to paint it sometimes when the subject is wearing a dress and light is passing through a little bit you might have to create several layers of shadows to make it look more natural after you create the shadows set the color and the blend mode properly and try to mash that with the existing shadows in the image use that as a reference do not forget the contact point shadow for example my hand is touching the shape table there's a shadow on the table but just where my hand is touching the surface of the table there would be a very dark area in some cases absolute darkness so you might have to create another layer and just just where the subject is just touching the ground add a little more darkness right over there after you have done all that this might not be enough where the shadow is a little bit of the darkness would also get onto the subject so just above the subject create a new layer and just paint around it change the blend mode to multiply limit that just to the subject add a little darkness around the shadow on the subject okay after that it's simple you can match the ambient lighting by just applying a blurred version of the new background on top of that and change the blend mode to color and then use curves to match the lighting the shadows and the color and at the end don't forget to apply an overall color grading or an overall filter something overall you can call this a global effect which brings everything together in this example we just slapped in a lot crisp worm that's it i hope this video helped you in some way or the other i hope you learned and picked up some techniques and if it did help you make sure to give us a like and also don't forget to subscribe and not just subscribe ring the bell so that you don't miss any other feature tips tricks or tutorials i would like to take this moment to thank all these nice and amazing people for supporting this channel on patreon and helping keep pixen perfect free for everybody forever please do consider supporting pixem perfect on patreon it really helps me do all of these research create all of these lessons and package that into a tutorial for you and just bring it out for you for free there are some perks of becoming a member which you can check out in pics patreon.comperfect as well and if you don't wish to support at the moment and just want to enjoy the video i'm already grateful to you for giving me your time i truly appreciate that thank you so much again for watching this video i'll see you in my next one till then stay tuned and make sure that you keep creating [Music] you

Channel: PiXimperfect

Views: 491,481

Rating: 4.9642758 out of 5

Keywords: compositing, photo manipulation, match color, create shadow, create realistic shadow, lighting, photography, composite, adobe, photoshop, tutorial, paint shadow, blend images, piximperfect, unmesh dinda

Id: Da4axkDKzxQ

Length: 36min 2sec (2162 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 06 2021