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Hiw to play with shadow? Brightness? Light? Sun?


H

hitch160387

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Hello everybody ! I'm a newbie with photoshop.
I tried to modify a picture of me in a park playing football.
I removed myself from the pic then paste it on a beach background.

The problem i have right now is to put some shadow on my body and play with contrast/Brigthness/lights in different areas of the picture...so I can get a realistic picture. It looks pretty bad, so far I need help.
May somebody help me with that ?
Please find below the picture i have edited so far.

Thanks a lot guys, have a fantastic day !
zzz.jpg
 
Hi Hitch! Welcome to PSG.

I'm sure people will chime in with many suggestions for how to adjust the lighting to make you and the background look like they are all part of one photograph, so I'm not going to discuss that in this message.

However, being the practical guy that I am, for pix that are easily re-shot (eg, the photo of you), often, it is vastly less work to simply take another photograph in lighting conditions that are more closely matched. The final results will usually be much better, as well.

Just my $0.02,

Tom
 
Hi again, Hitch - I only had a few min to think about your photo, but here's the specific things that got my attention:

1. The background is very cool (ie, blue-white) whereas you look like you were photographed in warmer light. If the color temp of the two parts of the picture don't agree, people will be suspicious (perhaps, only subliminally) that it is a composite.

2. The background is sharper than the subject, you. It should be the other way around.

3. The background is brighter and more contrasty than you. If anything, you should be a bit brighter than the background. Viewers will likely interpret that as perhaps you had the camera flash turned on to give a bit of fill light, or perhaps you had someone hold a reflector to spill some light on you.

4. There is a very sharp dividing line around you separating you from the background. It should be very slightly blurred.

Because I didn't have much time to put into this, in the example I'm going to post, I simply tried to make the background look a bit more like sunset, dropped the contrast on everything, and then tried to work on the above points.

My other choice would have been to leave the background alone and try to make the light on you less warm, but then the whole picture would need to be really sharp, including you. Unfortunately, because you are slightly blurred due to camera shake, that just couldn't be done in a convincing way.

HTH,
 
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Arghhh - I should never rush. Now that I caught my train and am looking at the example I attached to the previous msg, I see just how horrible it actually looks. I'll try to do a better version late tonight. The suggestions in the text still hold.

T
 
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Here is a quick edit that I believe takes into account Toms comments and what you are after. To be honest I am not a photographer so I did not see most of the things Tom pointed out but I THINK I have addressed them. Tom, I would appreciate your comments on what I have done.
Untitled-1.jpg
;
;
Hummmm, maybe too much blur in the background? Is this one better (I also tweaked the shadows on the body a bit).
;
;
Untitled-2.jpg

To do the edits I used the blur tool to soften the background, for the shadows I use the burn and dodge tools, to soften the edge of the body against the background I again used the blur tool, and I used the burn tool to very slightly darken the background.
 
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Bgoodman hey this actually pretty good ! I like the last one because it's less blury, I would maybe only put more shadow on the body. You did quite a good job thank you very much !
Still waiting for Tom's one to see if he can come up with something eslse interesting otherwise i'll go with yours it's pretty amazing thank you my friend !
 
Hi Guys -

BGood (...sorry, I forgot your real name...), you definitely addressed many of the points I raised. I really like the way you added shadows to the subject. They are so tastefully done that they look natural - you don't notice them unless you are specifically looking for them (which is a high compliment).

That being said, there are two major problems that remain:

a) The fact that the subject presented to us is soft, whereas he should be sharper than the background; and,

b) What I believe is a mismatch in color balance, contrast, light source, etc. between the background and the subject.


WRT (a), BGood, I wanted to use the shading of your first image. OTOH, over the years, I have developed my own techniques to sharpen problematic images, so I didn't want to use your 2nd image.

WRT (b), I could have worked hard changing the background you supplied into a credible warmer, darker image, but this would have taken me more time than I wanted to give to this little demo, so I took the easy route on the issue of the color mismatch and simply found a background on the web that had the colors and brightness that I wanted, flipped it L-R, and softened/blurred it to ensure that it was softer than my sharpened version of the subject.

I then cut out the subject in BGood's 1st tweaked version, sharpened it, fixed and (slightly) blurred the edges and then composited the two images, making slight tonality and color adjustments to the new background. Since a fill flash was obviously used to take the picture of the subject (look at the catchlights in his eyes), I was trying to a achieve a look typical of balanced fill flash located slightly to the right of the camera.

Once everything was together, and I could see how things looked as a whole, I then added more shadowing to the subject's torso, face and arms to enhance the illusion of an off camera flash slightly to the right and above the camera.

See what you think.

Tom
 

Attachments

  • bgoodman-1-tjm01-acr-ps02a_600px_wide-03.jpg
    bgoodman-1-tjm01-acr-ps02a_600px_wide-03.jpg
    245 KB · Views: 53
@Hitch

Do you have the originals still. I want to try and see what I can do to help you. But working from the image you have shown may prove slightly more difficult.
 
Thanks for the compliment Tom. Could I trouble you to give me some idea as to how I would adjust the warmth of the background?

I also am uploading a slightly revised version of my 2nd image above. I sharpened the foreground (body) a bit. I do think it looks better. Clearly the first thing nec in this sort of work is being able to see and understand whats out. When I first looked at the OP image I thought it looked pretty good, just needed a softer transition from forground to background. The tweaked versions do look much better but I could not have done them without Toms pointing out what needed to be corrected.

Untitled-3.jpg

PS: Tom, my name is Barry but BG or Bgood, or whatever is fine.
 
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Wow guys good job ! BG i think this very good.
Tom the body is perfect i love how you played with the shadows but i think the background doesnt fit
 
Glad to be of assistance hitch, these exercises are great learning tools so its a win win sort of thing.
 
@Hitch - I'm glad you liked what I did with shadowing. Barry is exactly right that these exercises are both great learning tools and practice so that everyone gets something out of them!

One question -- when you say that the background doesn't fit, is this because (a) it's the wrong place (eg, you never were actually there), (b) it's the wrong time of day (ie, you really want a daylight background), (c) you feel that it doesn't make a convincing composite image, or something else?

@Barry - as you know, there are an overwhelming number of ways to warm up an image in PS -- everything from "curves" to "photo filters" to commercial plugins like the Tiffen DFX set of cc and color balance filters, to putting a yellow or orange color adjustment layer on top of the image and setting the blend mode to color. These days, the method I probably use the most is to take the image into ACR and use a combination of the color sliders and the toning controls, and then take it over to Photoshop proper.

That being said, there is a big difference between "just warming it up a bit" and a full-bore transformation to a sunset or night scene, with the latter obviously being vastly more difficult (which is why I avoided doing so).

T

PS - @Hitch: My guess is that since you say you are just getting started at Photoshop, you probably don't have a color managed system, particularly, a hardware calibrated desktop (ie, not laptop) monitor. Let me strongly suggest that if you don't have this, it should be one of your first and highest priority system improvements, ie, before buying commercial plugins, before a faster computer, etc.. If you aren't absolutely sure that your monitor is giving you the right visual feedback, all of your efforts can be for naught. Your adjustments can look perfect to you, but somewhere between "eh" and horrible to other people.
 
Tom Mann said:
@Barry - as you know, there are an overwhelming number of ways to warm up an image in PS -- everything from "curves" to "photo filters" to commercial plugins like the Tiffen DFX set of cc and color balance filters, to putting a yellow or orange color adjustment layer on top of the image and setting the blend mode to color. These days, the method I probably use the most is to take the image into ACR and use a combination of the color sliders and the toning controls, and then take it over to Photoshop proper.
Click to expand...

Actually the type of work I do has no call (I think) for this sort of thing so I have no idea how to do it. I was basically curious so I thought I would ask. I work almost exclusively on gray scale images for use in combination with a 3D CAD program to produce jewellery models. The only time I am actually using a camera is to photograph the work I have done. Not much call for toning I think (but of course I could be wrong). I am completely self taught in the use of PS and especially in its use with the CAD program (very few people use the 2 together so there is almost no info available) so a great deal of whats talked about on this forum is new to me. I do pick up some excellent tips and techniques that assists me in my work from time to time so its been a very good place for me to hang out.

Could I trouble you for a suggestion for a good very basic introduction to the subject? Would it be of use in black and white work or is it more suited to colour images? The most important thing for me in PS is tweaking the brightness and darkness that is contrast (and location) of the pixels on the screen. I don't think tone would be a tool to affect this sort of thing but if it would I would like to find out more about it.

Thanks.

PS: I know a bit about coloured filters for adjusting contrast and correcting for lighting and film incompatibilities from my days shooting film and doing darkroom work. This was some 40 + years ago though so a lot of the info has been lost. I don't think I ever used a coloured filter to change the warmth of a black & white image. The only time I may have was when shooting colour snap shots indoors with outdoor film, and then it was just following what was said was the correct filter to use in whatever book I had read on the subject.
 
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Could I just point out that taking the time to watch a video tutorial on using the pen would help get better lines on the edges of the subject (in this case you), so that they don't look like they were cut out using the mouth of a shark.

I'm surprised this has not been mentioned yet, as this ruins the picture more than the difference in lighting.

I think the person who quite rightly said the background doesn't fit, was referring to the fact the camera taking the shot was low to the ground, as many photographers like to do when taking that kind of shot, so it looks as though if the camera panned out away from the shot, it would show him buried up to the waist.

May be better with a background like this!
View attachment 33234
 
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bgoodman4 said:
Actually the type of work I do has no call (I think) for this sort of thing so I have no idea how to do it. I was basically curious so I thought I would ask. I work almost exclusively on gray scale images for use in combination with a 3D CAD program to produce jewellery models. The only time I am actually using a camera is to photograph the work I have done. Not much call for toning I think (but of course I could be wrong). I am completely self taught in the use of PS and especially in its use with the CAD program (very few people use the 2 together so there is almost no info available) so a great deal of whats talked about on this forum is new to me. I do pick up some excellent tips and techniques that assists me in my work from time to time so its been a very good place for me to hang out.

Could I trouble you for a suggestion for a good very basic introduction to the subject? Would it be of use in black and white work or is it more suited to colour images? The most important thing for me in PS is tweaking the brightness and darkness that is contrast (and location) of the pixels on the screen. I don't think tone would be a tool to affect this sort of thing but if it would I would like to find out more about it.

Thanks.

PS: I know a bit about coloured filters for adjusting contrast and correcting for lighting and film incompatibilities from my days shooting film and doing darkroom work. This was some 40 + years ago though so a lot of the info has been lost. I don't think I ever used a coloured filter to change the warmth of a black & white image. The only time I may have was when shooting colour snap shots indoors with outdoor film, and then it was just following what was said was the correct filter to use in whatever book I had read on the subject.
Click to expand...

Well, I did some research and it turns out I did a lot of toning work when I was shooting film but it was all in the darkroom and I thought of it as tinting not toning. I spent a lot of time with various toners produced by diff mfg and learnt to be able to selectively colour sections of images. Not by using a brush and toner but by learning which toners to use in which order and also to use different toners at different stages of exhaustion. This info is long gone but I do recall that I had a lot of fun working with it. It seems pretty clear to me that toning will not play a part in my present work although I thought that curves might. I have not spent much time with the curves tool but I cannot imagine how you could use curves to "warm" up the background of an image such as the one in the OP.

EDIT: sorry about that, I was just playing with the curves tool and I can see how you might warm up an image using this tool. You would do it using colour channels I think.
 
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Hi Barry - I can't spend much time on this thread at the moment, but I'll return to it tmmrw.

However, I just wanted to answer your question about how to use curves to change the color of an image (or part thereof). It's so simple, you'll probably kick yourself. LOL.

To change the color, you apply a "curves" adjustment layer (...masked or not, as needed), and then separately adjust the R, B, and G curves. Move the bottom (ie, dark) end of the curves around gives you colored shadows, move the top end of the curves to give you colored highlights, etc.

T
 
Tom Mann said:
Hi Barry - I can't spend much time on this thread at the moment, but I'll return to it tmmrw.

However, I just wanted to answer your question about how to use curves to change the color of an image (or part thereof). It's so simple, you'll probably kick yourself. LOL.

To change the color, you apply a "curves" adjustment layer (...masked or not, as needed), and then separately adjust the R, B, and G curves. Move the bottom (ie, dark) end of the curves around gives you colored shadows, move the top end of the curves to give you colored highlights, etc.

T
Click to expand...
:) Tom, if you check my 3:03 edit above I mention that I had discovered this to be the case. Thanks for the confirmation.
 
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