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2 hours ago, v_kyr said:

Another way to get a shadow from a an object here is, to just Cmd/Ctrl-Click on the layer in order to get a selection of the object, then create a new layer, reuse the selection and fill that selection with black/gray etc. Afterwards dismiss the selection and drag the black/gray filled shadow layer below the initial object.

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2 minutes ago, firstdefence said:

I think although one can create a fairly realistic shadow, one of the main issue; for me at least, is the actual cowboy and the front lighting, it makes him look flat.

That is always going to be a problem if the added image is not lit at least approximately the same as the background photo. Here, it looks like the cowboy photo was shot in a studio, with typical portrait style lighting, using fill lights or reflectors to soften & fill in shadows on the model. It isn't a good match for a corral lit by bright sunlight, regardless of the sunlight angle.

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14 minutes ago, firstdefence said:

I think although one can create a fairly realistic shadow, one of the main issue; for me at least, is the actual cowboy and the front lighting, it makes him look flat. In Dennis video if you look at the boots they have a slight halo which cuts in-between the shadow and the boot making the whole thing look fake, so no matter how well you create a shadow, there needs to be attention paid to the "The Mophead Kid" -  sorry couldn't resist, and the shading that would make him fit into the image better.

These are fine and subtleties one can better adjust and finetune afterwards or before to fit better. - Further I think the OP was only interested to get an idea of the basic principle of a shadow creation and possible automation of such a task here and thus maybe just throwed a quick usage example together.

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7 minutes ago, v_kyr said:

That doesn't seem to be working here -- the "shadow" pixel layer is created but it is not filled with anything, & if I select it with the Move Tool afterwards, in the Transform panel everything is set to zero & greyed out.

If I turn off the Deselect step at the end, I do get non-greyed-out values in the Transform panel, & I can then (for example) use the Flood Fill tool to create a usable shadow in the 'marching ants' selection, so there is that.

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21 minutes ago, v_kyr said:

These are fine and subtleties one can better adjust and finetune afterwards or before to fit better. - Further I think the OP was only interested to get an idea of the basic principle of a shadow creation and possible automation of such a task here and thus maybe just throwed a quick usage example together.

Judging from the feature request he made that included mention of macros, I think Dennis may be hoping for much more than that; namely, an automated procedure that works for all images & requires little if any fine tuning afterwards. That really is more about reworking the whole macros feature to support something more like would be possible in a fully functional scripting language, which I doubt we will see in Affinity Photo anytime soon.

Regarding your example for your shadow macro, could you upload an example .afphoto file with a background photo & an image to be shadowed on separate layers, so we can see how it works with that? One of the things that makes useful macros so difficult to create is what works great for one document often works poorly if at all on another.

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10 minutes ago, R C-R said:

Judging from the feature request he made that included mention of macros, I think Dennis may be hoping for much more than that; namely, an automated procedure that works for all images & requires little if any fine tuning afterwards. That really is more about reworking the whole macros feature to support something more like would be possible in a fully functional scripting language, which I doubt we will see in Affinity Photo anytime soon.

Reread what firstdefence wrote ...

Quote

I think although one can create a fairly realistic shadow, one of the main issue; for me at least, is the actual cowboy and the front lighting, it makes him look flat.

... and my above answer to this related to the cowboy image and front lighting. - You are of course free to make a macro which then also finetunes the to be used images, if you have that much time and the passion to do so. But I think it would be a much better learning lesson for the OP if he dives himself into this, instead of that other people make all the homework here.

Regarding the macro there are several things which don't work well at all in Affinity's actual macro implementation. Sometimes things work, sometimes the same suddently doesn't and you have to reload the macro or restart the whole environment etc. We told them (the Affinity stuff) and a bunch of users x-times here in the forum about the shortcomings and huge limitations, we also demanded x-times for getting some better and more capable scripting support or at least enhancing the macro capabilities. - However I've given up on demanding and talking about these themes and certain other issues here, since I sadly too doubt that something like that (scripting language) will be coming at all. In addition I'm always also tired of hearing and re-reading always the same excuses here about those things for years. 

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3 minutes ago, v_kyr said:

But I think it would be a much better learning lesson for the OP if he dives himself into this, instead of that other people make all the homework here.

I do not disagree about that; I'm just pointing out why I think what he wants -- a highly automated, macro-driven shadow feature -- isn't practical.

Regarding the shortcomings of the current macro implementation, I agree that there are many -- I not infrequently mention them myself. But that does not mean I think it is reasonable to expect them to eliminate or improve that implementation anytime soon, no matter how often or how many users ask or demand that they do so. They have made it clear enough that there is much more to implementing just about any feature request than most users think there is, much less something as complex as a fuller featured macro implementation, or a far more difficult to implement scripting language.

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@v_kyr Thanks for your input. You are likely to be more right than wrong about your assessment of Affinity Photo. At the risk of making a long story even longer, I am going to do it anyway.:)

I made PS Actions for the Scripts I've had written and then worked closely with the Script Writer to achieve the intended result. What I wanted to do and did was create a better shadow than the one that is available in StudioMagic I from Layercake Elements, com. (It is worth noting that they have sold hundreds, maybe thousands of this program with a very poor Shadow Creation program. I worked with them, helping through the development stages and using what technology they had at that time. Their program was ultimately produced as a plug-in for PS and the Plug-in was created by a Program Writer that had limited knowledge.)  Never-the-less, it opened the door for further development and I believe that the Script that I use now in PS will be added to their next release. There is a huge market out there that isn't as picky as we might be. 

Before I continue, I should remind everyone that the images I use for demonstration come from places like Depositphoto where the lighting falls short in almost every way. 99% of the people images are flat lit and that is only the beginning of the shortcomings. Some of the images that Affinity used are pretty bad also but they do illustrate a technique.

I received a bunch of ideas from all of the people that responded to this thread. Thank you!:D Collective, I got a lot of help shortening my learning curve on this subject and how to get from point A to point B.

I also discovered that there are features in Affinity Photo that can take my Shadow concept way beyond where it is now. Unfortunately, as you pointed out, Affinity Photo still has a long way to go before this idea is viable.

You were absolutely right, I am looking at a Global Market potential and creating something that works quickly and effectively, within reason, for many images and situations. Having spent most of my career, that was before retirement, in Sales Management for some pretty big companies, I look at most things from a Global Sales perspective.

I have one more issue with the Shadow I've been able to create using a lot of the great input I have received. I'll post a video on that in the next day or so. After that, the next steps will be from Affinity Photo, if they choose to do anything!:(

 

 

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For this Shadow test, I started with Mr. Pea Shooter. A sort of modern-day dressed and flat lit guy. See the attached file.

But never mind, the image I am placing him on isn’t really from the old west either.

The cutout I did of Mr. Pea was done in Affinity Photo. I like this much better than PS. Being able to turn off/on the snap to edges is great. I added guides and used the crop tool to crop Mr. Pea's image. I like the options that are available with the crop tool.

I wanted to add some shadow to the right side (his right side) of Mr. Pea’s face. Because he is Flat lit. I tried the Live Lighting effect, but I didn’t like the way it worked. It looks like an overlay filter. I finally took it into PS and used Portrait Pro shadow effect to add the lighting like look to his face. It still doesn't beat the real thing.

The shadow is better and the user of the Macro (If I can make it work) will then be able to adjust the Blur and Density. The position and strength of the Gradient are fixed once it is applied. I found reference to that in the tutorials. The Macro will only create the Duplicate Layer, Select the Object, add a Gradient and stop. The user will do the rest. That's really no different than what my PS Script does except that moving the shadow using the Free Transform tool is much better and faster.

I would also like a way to adjust the blur so that there is more blur at the far end of the shadow. Next, I'll tackle the Macro. Again, if you have any ideas, I have really appreciated all your comments.

BTW, is it just me being critical or do some of the writers of the tutorials have trouble staying on topic?

Thank you.

Shadow Screen Shot.psd

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Sometimes, simulating real shadows may not be what you want .... xD

shadow.jpg.fa779c8cafdcbb51555b3bd296ece2db.jpg

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On 2/4/2019 at 12:27 AM, Dennis Nisbet said:

I would also like a way to adjust the blur so that there is more blur at the far end of the shadow. 

In my previous post I did this using a gradient mask on a Live Gaussian blur adjustment layer. You can take a look at the file I attached. 

sig2.png.950594012af1a9c5582236e0a457cd0a.pngsig1.png.975f263a1c12b5aec3f87a4541eb33ef.png

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On 2/3/2019 at 11:27 PM, Dennis Nisbet said:

I would also like a way to adjust the blur so that there is more blur at the far end of the shadow.

One way to do that is by adding a live Depth of Field filter to the shadow layer, possibly using that instead of a gaussian blur. If you use the DoF Tilt Shift mode you can adjust the angle & spacing of the DoF control handles to get quite a bit of non-destructive control over where & how much of the shadow layer is blurred.
834002465_Doffilter.jpg.13b514ff6874bde79a7f7d5bd57e6833.jpg

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You have always to try out what is finally recordable (and then graceful replayable) in a macro and what not, there is no documentation about the usable functions/filters etc. in macro usage. The help system doesn't name much about that, other than generic usage here:

Video Tutorials for Macros

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Today is a sad day for me. :(

Thanks to everyone for all your efforts with my shadow project. Unfortunately, I was never able to achieve the result I wanted.

PS has a Black to Transparent Gradient choice that I cannot reproduce. If I could, it would be too complex for a Macro.

I learned a lot. Most of all, I learned that Affinity, for all the things it can already do, still has a long way to go.

I believe that the Shadow idea I was able to have Scripted for PS has a lot of market application.

I'll keep working on other things, mostly learning for me, and keep an eye on future developments. 

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22 minutes ago, Dennis Nisbet said:

PS has a Black to Transparent Gradient choice that I cannot reproduce. If I could, it would be too complex for a Macro.

What's holding you up on making a black to transparent gradient?  Make both ends black with one node at zero opacity.
Once you get that you can make it into a Style... which are assignable in Macros.

Edit: missed it by one minute :D

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I also found this among the gradients fields, though honestly I don't remember if I maybe did made those once, or if they have been there as default (?).

blacktrans.jpg.6b01269384eedd600323189fc846e6c8.jpg

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Jimmy Jack,

What's holding me back is lack of knowledge. I've spent countless hours working with this and trying everything that someone suggests.

Thank you. I'll try your idea next. 

I've used PS since PS 2. I've written Actions and had them made into Scripts and I worked for 5 years helping a startup company. So, for me, it's like learning how to do things all over again.

Thank you very much for the input. 

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