More about Shadow Creation

[JimmyJack]

I used much of what's mentioned above... With an additional way to do the gradient on a pixel layer.
I just nested a fill layer, with a gradient, under the cowboy copy (set to Multiply). This way the gradient controls persist. Can also be done with a nested shape. 
 

[R C-R]

3 minutes ago, JimmyJack said:

I used much of what's mentioned above...

Looks good, except for where the shadow begins at the left boot. That is the one issue that I find hard to get right with using a perspective filter for shadow creation. 

From the video in the first post, it looks like the Photoshop script has the same issue.

[Dennis Nisbet]

Wow! Jimmy Jackson,

Who could ask for anything more, but a Pea Shooter and a BANG sign!

All joking aside, you just added another important step for me to examine. The Depth of Field Blur combined with the Gradient. 

This is a missing element in all the attempts at shadows I've ever seen in PS.

Thank you.

[R C-R]

7 minutes ago, Dennis Nisbet said:

Who could ask for anything more...

Two things that I think are almost impossible to replicate in a 2D graphics app, Photoshop included, if photorealistic shadows are the goal:

1. Shadow variations due to ground contours & other objects in the shadow's path, like the fence posts in your shot
2. Matching shadows cast on the placed image itself with those of the background photo, like on the side of the body shaded from the light source or under the brim of the hat

There are various ways to fake such things, but they are all labor intensive & unless done with a lot of skill, a careful examination of the final image will reveal the fakery. But for most purposes some combination of the techniques mentioned here should be good enough.

[Dennis Nisbet]

I have a question for all of you that have participated in the forum dialog about shadows.

At this point, there appears to be a lot of merit in finding a way to do this and it would be of significant use too many owners of Affinity Photo.

It also looks like the lack of the "FREE TRANSFORM" command is going to be the principal hang-up.

It also looks like, if the "FREE TRANSFORM" command did exist it would have a lot of applications outside of the Shadow concept.

 

I think I've mentioned this before; In a composite image, a shadow is an anchor for the added image. Without it, all we have is floating images.

As we continue these great discussions that will refine this process, how do we get Affinity involved? 

Without their help, I don't see that this can go much further. Do you?

[Dennis Nisbet]

@R C-R Well said in your last post above when you pointed out some of the pitfalls of this type of shadow. And I quote.

"Two things that I think are almost impossible to replicate in a 2D graphics app, Photoshop included, if photorealistic shadows are the goal:

1. Shadow variations due to ground contours & other objects in the shadow's path, like the fence posts in your shot
2. Matching shadows cast on the placed image itself with those of the background photo, like on the side of the body shaded from the light source or under the brim of the hat

There are various ways to fake such things, but they are all labor intensive & unless done with a lot of skill, a careful examination of the final image will reveal the fakery. But for most purposes, some combination of the techniques mentioned here should be good enough."

I spent 5 years working with a 3rd. party creator of software whos Shadows, compared to what we may be able to make in Affinity, were Childs Play. And yet, they sold thousands of the Application because there wasn't anything else on the market. By comparison, we are collectively going from a Piper 150 to a Supersonic Jet!

Where the present methods are either poor in quality or too labor-intensive, this approach will meet the needs of most that are creating composites and it will be fast and easy.

[R C-R]

Correct me if I am wrong but the only significant advantage of the (no more ALL CAPS please!) PS Free Transform feature is anchoring it to its 'parent' image, right? If so, I think in at least most respects this can be done in Affinity by putting both objects (& and adjustments, filers, etc.) into the same group. If not, please tell me what else is needed to duplicate (approximately or otherwise) that advantage.

Regarding how to get Serif involved, try posting a topic to the appropriate Feature Requests & Feedback forum, with a title & description that clearly states what you want & how it should work.

[v_kyr]

Hmm, why should you follow the exact PS way and bother with gradients here?  Why not just instead use the illumination/lighting filter on a copied cowboy layer in order to make a shadow out of that with different lighting settings? - IMO that gives clearer to view impact and even more finegrade for such things like building a shadow out of an object then.

You can finetune that much more here, to an absolute dark or lighter variable area lightend shadow, with transparency etc. - The tool to use and play around with for creating a shadow copy would be this one then ...

 

[Dennis Nisbet]

@R C-R I'm an old guy who learned that CAPS were a way to provide emphasis and not shouting.  I'll try underlining instead.

Quickly positioning the shadow for each object in the image is the primary purpose. To be effective, everything will have to be created so that it works for a variety of sizes in a harmonious way.

Being able to quickly create the shadow and then make some final tweaks will be a real boost to the pro that might be doing a bunch of composites a day like school photographers.

Please ask me more questions if this doesn't help. This is really a big deal and a giant step forward for a significant merging market called compositing.  

 

  

[Dennis Nisbet]

@v_kyr Can you do what you are proposing in a few seconds?

Can the process be applied to a variety of placed images in a composite?

If you can, it might make sense to go that route

[v_kyr]

35 minutes ago, Dennis Nisbet said:

Can you do what you are proposing in a few seconds?

Depends on you how quick and accurate you setup and how you want to have this. You can give it a try.

37 minutes ago, Dennis Nisbet said:

Can the process be applied to a variety of placed images in a composite? 

Placed Images are layers as in your above example, you can apply that to individual layers as you want.

[v_kyr]

Another maybe for you even easier way or possibility to make quick shadows out of layer objects is to use the FX outer shadow effect ...

Here when an FX shadow is applied on a placed obj, the effect can usually be taken over aka copied (Edit > Copy) and then be pasted (Edit > Paste effect) over to other objs then. So if you perform this on a duplicate layer like shown above you can copy and apply that effect to other placed image copies (layers) then. You just have to size/bend/slant those shadows then into the wanted direction.

All in all what I've shown you are just two other possible ways to create a shadow here instead. Thus you should finaly use that way you personally do feel most comfortable with and the easiest to create!

[Patrick C]

2 hours ago, Dennis Nisbet said:

I have a question for all of you that have participated in the forum dialog about shadows.

At this point, there appears to be a lot of merit in finding a way to do this and it would be of significant use too many owners of Affinity Photo.

It also looks like the lack of the "FREE TRANSFORM" command is going to be the principal hang-up.

It also looks like, if the "FREE TRANSFORM" command did exist it would have a lot of applications outside of the Shadow concept.

 

I think I've mentioned this before; In a composite image, a shadow is an anchor for the added image. Without it, all we have is floating images.

As we continue these great discussions that will refine this process, how do we get Affinity involved? 

Without their help, I don't see that this can go much further. Do you?

I suggest you check out the Perspective tools, if you haven't already, as it serves most purposes that the transform tools in photoshop would. I think this may be what others are missing in their demonstrations; the shadow needs to follow a proper perspective.

Live Perspective (Non Destructive): 

and here is an Overview of other perspective tools

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, Dennis Nisbet said:

Quickly positioning the shadow for each object in the image is the primary purpose. To be effective, everything will have to be created so that it works for a variety of sizes in a harmonious way.

Using the skew & resize handles does this, & you don't have to waste any time switching tools or modes or invoking a script from a menu -- just position the Move Tool pointer in the appropriate place  & click & drag. True, it is two steps but with a small amount of practice it can take just a fraction of a second to do both steps -- after all, the pointer only has to be moved a tiny distance to switch from skewing to resizing. It also avoids the problem with the PS script of having to readjust the shadow's position to keep it attached to the base (or whatever) of the object, although you do have to position the rotation center correctly for that to work.

[Dennis Nisbet]

@Dclone2I think I've gone into Information Overload but thank you for this input.

Have you tried putting together a Focused portfolio, either hard copy or within your own website? There are a lot of different companies that use freelancers but they usually want to see work that you do that is specific to their business.

Also, do you work in both Affinity and Photoshop?

These are questions you may encounter.

[Dennis Nisbet]

@R C-R Again, thank you for your input. It has opened the door to a lot of ideas from several people.

My view of this process (Shadow Creation) is that once it is developed, it can be made into a Macro that anyone can use for any given situation.

Better yet, it could become a part of Affinity Photo, perhaps as a command.

When you consider how well it could work and how easy the tweaks would be, well, that's exciting, isn't it?

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, v_kyr said:

Another maybe for you even easier way or possibility to make quick shadows out of layer objects is to use the FX outer shadow effect ...

But that creates a drop shadow effect, producing the effect of a flat 2D object floating above a surface. I don't think is what is wanted here.

In fact, I don't think there is any shadow effect that will work for every composite. For example, you need a very different shadow that is cast by someone standing a few feet in front of a wall or other vertical surface, since part of the shadow will be cast on the ground or floor & the rest on the wall. You also have to account for perspective effects, which will vary depending on the lighting angle & orientation of every surface the shadow is cast on.

You also may have to account for ambient light to match the photo background's ambient light, which could have a color cast of its own. A trick for this from the old days for outdoor scenes is to give the placed object & the shadow a slightly bluish cast to match light scattered from the sky, or for indoor scenes a slight color cast to match light reflected from interior walls. Sometimes it isn't important but other times it is the only way to make the placed object look like it is really in the scene & not just pasted on top of it.

Basically, you have to at least consider how real lights cast real shadows from real 3D objects onto other real 3D objects & to some extent account for that, otherwise even if people are not aware of exactly what is wrong with the effect they will be aware that something isn't quite right about it.

EDIT: see for example this short article about some of the things that need to be considered for creating believable cast (as opposed to drop) shadows.

[Pariah73]

13 hours ago, R C-R said:

Very briefly, an image layer is like an individual embedded layer, while an embedded document is an entire embedded native Affinity format file, including all its layers.

that was brief! thanks!

[v_kyr]

1 hour ago, R C-R said:

But that creates a drop shadow effect, producing the effect of a flat 2D object floating above a surface. I don't think is what is wanted here.

Yes it creates a fx drop shadow which in Affinity is firmly tighted to the obj and obj layer here, since you can't sadly reuse it's creation any further in the same manner as in PS drop shadows here, which let you easily reuse that separately for further finetune manipulations if needed. - Related to real shadows and photography these can be really complex and depending on format of light sources, light blocking or mirroring obstacles, positioning, scattering and so on. Some scenarios are really difficult to artificially create/reproduce with software, even the better and expensive studio light simulation software very often can't emulate things here in an somehow half way adequat manner. It's a difficult to handle domain even for 3D special effects software design pros and usually takes a lot of fine grade work. But I believe this goes beyond what the OP is looking for then.

However, the OP must see what fits his personal needs best and what he also can automate in a way he is looking for.

 

[carl123]

23 minutes ago, v_kyr said:

Yes it creates a fx drop shadow which in Affinity is firmly tighted to the obj and obj layer here, since you can't sadly reuse it's creation any further in the same manner as in PS drop shadows here, which let you easily reuse that separately for further finetune manipulations if needed

On Windows, you can create a reusable FX Drop Shadow by copying the object with the shadow, then...

Edit > Paste Special (Portable Document Format)

Two new image layers are created, one being the separated FX Drop Shadow

(I do not believe Mac users have the same Paste Special options)

[R C-R]

3 hours ago, carl123 said:

(I do not believe Mac users have the same Paste Special options)

This is all we have on Macs:

None of them create a separate drop shadow layer. 

But this sort of works to create a separate cast shadow effect:

1. Duplicate an object that has no shadow fx
2. Give the duplicate an inner shadow effect with the maximum possible radius (1024 px is the largest value it will accept for me)
3. Set the fx fill opacity (at the bottom of the fx window) to 0%
4. Add a gaussian blur to this duplicate to soften the shadow as needed (a DoF blur might work better for this)
5. Set the rotation center appropriately & skew, rotate, lengthen, & position the dup as needed to get a (reasonably) convincing cast shadow effect
6. If needed, you can reduce the layer opacity or change the inner shadow blend mode to fine tune the effect
7. Group the original & duplicate so they can be moved around or resized as needed

Some of this is probably doable in a macro, but I haven't tried that yet.

A faked up example of what to expect:

fake cast shadow.afphoto

[jc4d]

15 hours ago, Dennis Nisbet said:

One important thing is missing and Affinity would have to resolve this. (FREE TRANSFORM)

Agree.

[R C-R]

8 minutes ago, jc4d said:

15 hours ago, Dennis Nisbet said:

One important thing is missing and Affinity would have to resolve this. (FREE TRANSFORM)

Agree.

Personally, I am opposed to adding any feature that shouts at me in ALL CAPS. 

But more seriously, what do you think about refining the existing Affinity Photo Perspective Tool instead, like by adding handles at the center of each edge that could be dragged much like in the PS Free Transform feature? Personally, I would rather have a tool for this instead of a "mode" like in PS.

[jc4d]

10 minutes ago, R C-R said:

Personally, I am opposed to adding any feature that shouts at me in ALL CAPS. 

But more seriously, what do you think about refining the existing Affinity Photo Perspective Tool instead, like by adding handles at the center of each edge that could be dragged much like in the PS Free Transform feature? Personally, I would rather have a tool for this instead of a "mode" like in PS.

Ok, you got me here now, I know you mentioned the Perspective Tool but I wasn't aware of the Perspective Live Filter... it does what I needed, I thought honestly that the only way to distort the layer was the Perspective Tool which is destructive.

If I'm picky, I would dare to say that the Perspective Live Filter adds more clicks to perform a task that could be easily solved by controlling directly the layer handles.

[R C-R]

5 minutes ago, jc4d said:

If I'm picky, I would dare to say that the Perspective Live Filter adds more clicks to perform a task that could be easily solved by controlling directly the layer handles.

Well, the live Perspective Filter does have the benefit of being totally non-destructive, & I don't think that would be true if a free transform function was implemented as anything other than a live filter, so there is that.

However, whether the deformations are done with the live or regular Perspective Filter or with the Perspective Tool, I still think it would be great if the handles were more like regular bounding box handles, so with 8 instead of just the 4 corner ones & all the skew, rotate, & resize features worked the same way as with the Move Tool.