Shadows

[ehume]

PSP has a fine dropshadow effect, but I want more. First I want to ask if I have missed a preexisting PSP function.

I have never been able to draw so that what is below, though simple from a drawing perspective, is not so simple when you cannot draw:

shadow on floor.jpg (6.74 KiB) Viewed 2285 times

1. It would be nice to cast a shadow onto any plane, not simply behind the foreground object. Maybe even a compound shadow:

Compound Shadow.png (14 KiB) Viewed 2285 times

2. Now for the tricky ask: a 3D shadow on the floor of a horse in mid-air. I can get a drawing of the top view of a horse:

So, I could fill the innards with black, use the Perspective tool, and place it under a 2D side-view picture of a horse in the air to make it look like a horse leaping is lit from above, making a shadow on the floor. But that would be a lot of work.

I was wondering if PSP could use the processing power of our computers to make a faux-3D version of a 2D image, and cast the shadow to any arbitrary plane. A floor, for example.

So, have I missed a way that PSP can do that? I know in PS CS2 (long in the tooth now) one could cast a shadow from any chosen direction.

[hartpaul]

Firstly you need to realise that any creation of a shadow effect cannot produce what was not there in the first place.
eg in your first image the top of the person is missing so any shadow top is guesswork. The person could have an affro hairstyle, or 2 arms or no arms as you have depicted them.

A drop shadow effect can only produce a distorted figure of what is already there.

When I need a shadow to be manipulated I duplicate the image then with a combination of changeing its contrast or other isolation adjustments and then use the Threshold adjustment (Adjust > Brightness and Contrast > Threshold) to get an isolated black image of the person.
The rest of the image is white so I can select the white and with the layer promited to a raster image can then delete the white area leaving the black (shadow) on a transparent background.
This can then be manipulated by pasteing on the original image as a new layer and then changing its size orientation, warping it a bit or cropping parts off it as desired.

[ehume]

Firstly you need to realise that any creation of a shadow effect cannot produce what was not there in the first place.
eg in your first image the top of the person is missing so any shadow top is guesswork. The person could have an affro hairstyle, or 2 arms or no arms as you have depicted them.

A drop shadow effect can only produce a distorted figure of what is already there.

When I need a shadow to be manipulated I duplicate the image then with a combination of changeing its contrast or other isolation adjustments and then use the Threshold adjustment (Adjust > Brightness and Contrast > Threshold) to get an isolated black image of the person.
The rest of the image is white so I can select the white and with the layer promited to a raster image can then delete the white area leaving the black (shadow) on a transparent background.
This can then be manipulated by pasteing on the original image as a new layer and then changing its size orientation, warping it a bit or cropping parts off it as desired.

What you have described will work for case 1 (let us assume we have the entire foreground object to cast the shadow). It's just that the Dropshadow effect is so much quicker and easier. Further, an old version of PS does 1a with hardly more work.

As for 1b, we are really seeing two shadows at right angles to each other.

I guess what I am asking is whether these issues (3D shadow plane and faux-3D objects) should be on the Wishlist for PSP 2021.

[ehume]

Firstly you need to realise that any creation of a shadow effect cannot produce what was not there in the first place.
eg in your first image the top of the person is missing so any shadow top is guesswork. The person could have an affro hairstyle, or 2 arms or no arms as you have depicted them.

A drop shadow effect can only produce a distorted figure of what is already there.

When I need a shadow to be manipulated I duplicate the image then with a combination of changeing its contrast or other isolation adjustments and then use the Threshold adjustment (Adjust > Brightness and Contrast > Threshold) to get an isolated black image of the person.
The rest of the image is white so I can select the white and with the layer promited to a raster image can then delete the white area leaving the black (shadow) on a transparent background.
This can then be manipulated by pasteing on the original image as a new layer and then changing its size orientation, warping it a bit or cropping parts off it as desired.

What you have described will work for case 1 (let us assume we have the entire foreground object to cast the shadow). It's just that the Dropshadow effect is so much quicker and easier. Further, an old version of PS does 1a with hardly more work.

As for 1b, we are really seeing two shadows at right angles to each other: two shadow planes.

I guess what I am asking is whether these issues (3D shadow plane and faux-3D objects) should be on the Wishlist for PSP 2021.

[hartpaul]

To illustrate second example I isolated the figure, converted to a black figure , removed the background:

I copied and pasted to two transparent layers , vertically flipped and then used a mesh warp to move and distort the shadow and then after finalising the move tool to make sure the lower legs were matching.

02flippedandmeshwarped.jpg (55.35 KiB) Viewed 2236 times

For your flying horse I removed thebackground to isolate the horse and the shadow produced as earlier and then copied and pasted to separate layers, then Pick tool to scale down.

Also to make it match the background moved and lightened (by lowering the opacity) to get a shadow flying behind.

Hope that is what you are after.

BTW you do realise that when you make a quote you can edit parts out from within the quote to help emphasise the relevant parts that you are answering. Saves long series of quotes with the full text of all previous quotes . You can even go back some days later and reedit previous quotes to shorten the answers and make them more relevant.

[ehume]

. . . BTW you do realise that when you make a quote you can edit parts out from within the quote to help emphasise the relevant parts that you are answering. Saves long series of quotes with the full text of all previous quotes . You can even go back some days later and reedit previous quotes to shorten the answers and make them more relevant.

I see that with time and effort, you have graphically most things are possible with PSP. IMO they could make it easier and quicker, but I will not add it to the wishlist.

As for editing a quote, I get it.

[hartpaul]

I also went back to see how the Effects >3D Effects >Drop Shadow worked in PSP 2018 and yes wht I have done is easy with that as well so it already exists.
Just make sure you have lots of canvas area if you want to move the shadow far away.
My first diagram shows the isolated hoss moved ner the top of a canvas with plenty of galloping room below. I have made sure that the shadow is on a new layer.

Then most importantly you must unlink the object and its shadow. The default is linked so that when you move the object a realistic close shadow follows it. This would be as most people prefer it when they do the occasional drop shadow.

Then you can make the shadow layer active and make the shadow appear anywhere by dragging just that layer . You can also blur or blur more and even change the opacity of that layer .

[ehume]

This is why I wonder about faux-3D:

I created the shadow from a drawing of the top view of a horse, then placed the shadow under the leaping horse. It is not perfect, but I hope you get the idea. If PSP could create a 3D model of the side drawing I would not have to find a top view, color it black, make it somehow look as if it is being projected on a floor from a light source overhead.

I think I need a tutorial on using the Pick tool.

[Jean-Luc]

Variation on Ehume's idea...

[hartpaul]

Once again note my previous statement
"Firstly you need to realise that any creation of a shadow effect cannot produce what was not there in the first place.
eg in your first image the top of the person is missing so any shadow top is guesswork. The person could have an affro hairstyle, or 2 arms or no arms as you have depicted them. "

In the white horse on pink background thehorse is two dimensional and shows no depth thickness while the shadow shows something that does not exist in an effort to pretend that it does.
For a computer program to be able to generate such a shadow it would need to recognise that it is a horse and not a unicorn or other horned animal, It would then have to examine all such shadows of a horse or lots of horses from above and select a suitable shadow to match.

In the case of the horse on grass the shadow is again another guess as the horse could be a hobby horse set on a stand with wheels underneath which would produce another different type of shadow. I doubt that computers and specially PSP are up to this level yet .

[Jean-Luc]

I doubt that computers and specially PSP are up to this level yet .

Not PSP but some computers using AI are trying to recreate "missing" (invisible) parts of a subject:
https://petapixel.com/2019/06/17/this-a ... ill-photo/
Experimental, of course...

[ehume]

I doubt that computers and specially PSP are up to this level yet .

Not PSP but some computers using AI are trying to recreate "missing" (invisible) parts of a subject:
https://petapixel.com/2019/06/17/this-a ... ill-photo/
Experimental, of course...

This is what I had in mind. I guess it will be included in PSP 2032, if someone is still making PSP then.

[hartpaul]

Not PSP but some computers using AI are trying to recreate "missing" (invisible) parts of a subject:
https://petapixel.com/2019/06/17/this-a ... ill-photo/
Experimental, of course...

Rather impressive, but it still relies upon assumptions and can only show what is visible with (slight variations ) in the original image.
eg the animation would not be able to show the figure turning around and show the advertising on the back.
In a similar manner if I take a picture of just a valley area between two mountains I cannot expect to make a panorama to include the two mountains unless I take two additional photos that include the mountains.

So to get a three dimensional image like a hologram you would need to take pictures of the back and both sides as well.

[ehume]

Not PSP but some computers using AI are trying to recreate "missing" (invisible) parts of a subject:
https://petapixel.com/2019/06/17/this-a ... ill-photo/
Experimental, of course...

Rather impressive, but it still relies upon assumptions and can only show what is visible with (slight variations ) in the original image.
eg the animation would not be able to show the figure turning around and show the advertising on the back.
In a similar manner if I take a picture of just a valley area between two mountains I cannot expect to make a panorama to include the two mountains unless I take two additional photos that includfe the mountains.

So to get a three dimensional image like a hologram you would need to take pictures of the back and both sides as well.

All of which is true. But you don't need any of this to cast a shadow. All you need (such a trivial pursuit) is the outer shape and a moveable lightsource. Beside making a 3D shape from a picture, making a plane to cast a shadow on is small beans.