Remove Shadow 20X FASTER in Photoshop! (Updated)

hi there this is sunraish from fixing perfect and today i'm going to share with you how to remove shadows faster way faster maybe about 10 to 20 times faster you see 10 months ago we created a video on removing shadows by using a soft round brush and we dodged on the shadow areas while that might be an excellent technique and create amazing results however it can take a very long time somewhere between one to four hours depending upon the image that or the shadow that you're working with while experimenting with different techniques and looking at different ways of doing certain things i figured out a much more efficient way to do it that you can use to remove the exact same shadow that can take you about three to four hours in just 10 minutes so let's get straight to the technique so without any further ado let's get started so here we are back in the brilliant world of photoshop you can go ahead and download this photo and follow along you guys already know what to do check the links in the description so here we have the same image that we used 10 months ago in that previous video and in that video we took a brush and slowly and gradually dodged every single area and you can imagine how long it could take to get the skin to be absolutely flat and also at the same time not look too flat that it becomes a flat cartoon right so the best way to get rid of this is to realize that shadows create even darkness throughout the shadow area what does that mean have a look at this photo very closely the hand is blocking the light in those areas have a look at these areas in these areas the hand is blocking the light now the light will be blocked equally in all of these areas so why should we take a small brush and paint over it so very gradually that it can take so much time to get it equally brightened when this is already equally darkened so instead of doing that let's do this first all we have to do is to make a rough selection of the shadow you don't have to be accurate here just zoom in and with the help of the polygonal lasso tool i'm going to use that you can also use lasso tool if that's your favorite so click and hold right here choose the polygonal lasso tool you can also use pen tool if you want to be super accurate but that is not necessary so let's start making the selection always keep in mind stay inside stay inside even the shadow transition so quickly make a selection look how fast this is whoops i messed up no problem all we have to do is to hold the shift key and add it no problem here we always need to show the mistakes in the videos as well now let's finish the selection from here release the shift key and finish it that is added to we can always subtract that hold the alt key or the option key for the minus one and then just subtract that area no problem let's brighten it so click on the adjustment layer icon and then choose curves now the curves is going to load up with that active selection as a mask as you can see right here now you have guessed already what we are going to do so click on the middle create a point and take it up we need to brighten that area so about this much looks fine to me now the colors can be distracting while removing shadows so for that let's take away the colors momentarily and we can easily do that by clicking on the adjustment layer icon and then choosing solid color choose any shade of gray the saturation has to be zero that's fine hit ok and change the blend mode from normal to color that's going to take away the colors momentarily and there's a science behind why we do it this way and you can watch more about check layers in this video but for right now let's focus on this do you think the brightness levels are fine if not simply open up the curves properties by double clicking on the adjustment layer icon and then adjust this point now i know there's harsh outline and harsh edge that we need to take care of don't worry about that right now now as you can see the original shadow edge is blurry right so look at the shadow the edge is blurry the transition is smoother so what do we do to make the transition smoother or to blur the edge simply blur it right so with the mask selected click on the filter and then blur and inside of blur gaussian blur about a value of 8 is fine you can adjust the value according to your taste for this example 8 looks fine to me hit ok there's still that edge we need to definitely work on that first of all there are two ways that you can approach this number one you can simply take the brush and start dodging those areas or what you can do you can also try this this is a new technique you can use the smudge tool so if you click and hold on the blur tool in that group you will see the smudge too strength 50 is fine with the small smudge tool brush just try to bring it out and match it in some places it works wonders have a look at this zoom out and have a look all right so that's one way as you can see that's also very easy to do in certain areas as well like this area you can just push it outside and match with the shadow but for most of the areas you need to do it with the brush but right now we don't need to take the brush and do it slowly and gradually over all of the areas all we need to cover is the edge areas and that's it so with the brush selected decrease the flow to about four or five percent so i'm gonna choose four percent for me flow right there make sure the mask is selected white as the foreground color and just start painting on the edge that's it i think we need to increase the brightness so open up the curves properties and zoom out and then try to match the brightness once you're satisfied just minimize it and just get back to the brush and brighten up the edges select the mask at the moment as you can see the shadows are completely gone isn't that amazing the only little hard work we had to do was working on the edges now once you're done just turn off or delete this luminosity check layer i'm just going to click and drag it to the trash can and there you have it let's take a look here's the before and here is the after now you can take more time if you want to create one more curves adjustment layer for dodging and burning and correct or soften some more areas if you want to but to me it looks perfect if certain areas don't look right to you i'm just going to save time and do this i'll simply press ctrl alt shift and e to create a stamp visible layer at the top and then choose the patch tool right there for me uh this area looks a little odd so i won't bother too much i'll just select that area and drag it to an area of my choice and there you go that area is now fixed anything that doesn't look right to you to me this image looks perfect but if you feel that there are some areas that just don't look right you can just select that area and drag it to the preferred area of your choice and you my friend are done for the day let's do a quick little recap first of all create a selection of the shadow you can use any of your favorite selection tools just keep in mind that you have to stay inside stay inside the transition of the shadow once you have made the selection once the selection is active click on the adjustment layer icon in the layers panel and then choose curves now the curves will be created with that active selection as a mask brighten up the shadow with the help of curves and then you're going to see some hard edge so we need to blur it right so with the mask selected go to filter blur and then gaussian blur apply appropriate blur you'll be fine and then after that with the help of the brush tool or the smudge tool you can select the mask and match the shadow with that of the line or the edges that you see when you're using the brush use a very low flow also sometimes colors can be distracting so you can create a luminosity check layer at the very top by simply creating a solid color adjustment layer and changing the color to any shade of gray and change the blend mode to color you can turn it off or on at the end or simply delete it i hope this video helped you and if it did make sure to give us a like and also don't forget to subscribe and not just subscribe ring the bell so that you my friend don't miss any other future tips tricks or tutorials i would love to take this moment to thank all these nice and amazing people for supporting this channel on patreon and help me keep fixing perfect free for everybody forever thanks so much for your support thank you for watching i'll see you guys again in my next one till then stay tuned and make sure that you keep creating [Music] you

Channel: PiXimperfect

Views: 596,987

Rating: 4.9518037 out of 5

Keywords: remove shadow photoshop, remove shadow from face, fix shadow in photoshop, fix harsh shadows, portrait retouching, fix dark shadows, reduce harsh lighting, remove unwanted shadows, curves, brushes, adjustment layer, blending mode, adobe, photoshop tutorial, unmesh dinda, piximperfect

Id: sRMFYKiXB6U

Length: 8min 53sec (533 seconds)

Published: Wed May 20 2020