pinning/attaching an image, in order to distort around those stationary points

[phillyclare]

i have an image of a tailor's mannequin in photoshop CS5.

i have made a fake shadow that disappears into the distance.
all ok - BUT.... i need to attach/pin the shadow legs to the point where they meet the legs of the mannequin, so that i can distort the shadow without it coming away from the real mannequin, otherwise it will look illogical!

i tried Puppet Warp tool but it seems you can only 'rotate' around points, making it look like a whirlpool!
Any ideas would be so so helpful, thank you

 

[IamSam]

The shadow is just a duplicated layer of the man that I filled with black. This layer will need to be just below the mans layer.

Here I have moved the shadow over so it can be seen. Normally it would not be moved over before you transform it.



The shadow can be maniped using the free transform function in the 'distort' mode.



You can just move the shadow to keep the feet "pinned".

 

[IamSam]

The shadow can be stretched.........



A gradient can be added to make it fade......



Then blurred........

 

[phillyclare]

Thanks IAmSam, but this is what i've been doing. However - these mannequins have stand with 3 or 5 feet splaying out form the centre, making it very hard to distort without the shadow feet moving away from the image... especially as i want to elongate the shadow so that it falls across the floor and away....

 

[IamSam]

Can you post an image of one of the mannequins?

 

[phillyclare]

this is the whole image - all mannequins are different layers... you can see the shadows are ok, but the feet don't match

 

[IamSam]

Ok, I see your problem. Give me a few minutes.

 

[phillyclare]

thank you !

 

[IamSam]

Well, hopefully someone else will come up with a better idea!

I tried several techniques and the one that seems to work best for me is to paint in the legs with the brush tool.

I first transformed the shadow into position.



Then I removed the two side legs by masking....


On a new layer, I used the brush tool to paint in the two side legs. This requires some artistic interpretation.


With a little work it creates a fairly convincing shadow....

 

[Rich54]

A few comments:

1. Another way to get the shadow feet to touch the legs of the stand is with the Warp tool. Just grab the shadow feet and pull them in where they need to be. When I make shadows, I like using 50% gray with the layer set to Multiply, adjusting opacity and blur to fit the situation.

2. In this particular situation, the shadows that PhillyClare has created seem unconvincing to me because of the light source. Your shadows are at an extreme angle and are very distinct, which suggests a single, strong light source (such as late-afternoon sunlight on a clear day) coming from the left. However, the mannequins themselves seem to exist in very soft, diffuse overhead light. The shadows on the mannequins themselves are very subtle and sometimes non-existent (i.e., the red one).

3. Moreover, if I look closely at the white mannequin in the foreground, it has very subtle dark shading on the left side, which implies that the light source is coming from the right. So your shadow is actually going the wrong way.

4. In this particular situation, I would make the shadows be a somewhat indistinct, round-ish pool around the bottom of the stand, suggesting an indistinct light source coming from the top-right. I would also set the opacity low and the blur high.

 

[IamSam]

1. Another way to get the shadow feet to touch the legs of the stand is with the Warp tool. Just grab the shadow feet and pull them in where they need to be.

I attempted this and failed with most shadow configurations. The problem is that the warp tends to move too much of the rest of the shadow. I even tried isolating the selection then warping. Pretty much a fail.

While I might agree with some of your points, I think the goal here is to try and help the OP with his/her question. Once an acceptable technique can be found, adjusting the shadow to match lighting conditions and direction can be accomplished later.

 

[Paul]

A combination of puppet warp and perspective will achieve this, just set the anchor points in four places top of the stand and then one on each tip of the legs.

 

[phillyclare]

thank you IAmSam for trying this, i will have a go at this. and thanks all for the suggestions.

 

[chrisdesign]

I followed this thread closely, and tried out several variations of shadows, more or less like Sam's attempts. Couldn't match the legs properly, something always looked wrong. Very frustrating!
I went back to the OP's image and for the first time I realized that the lighting of this image is very soft. Thanks Rich54, you mentioned this already in your post.
My last attempt of a soft shadow is a painted one. I decided to post it here.