Shadow Workshop 2024

[Michele]

Day Three
I could use some practice. 🤣

 

[Sheila Hogg]

I really struggled with this one, mainly because my warp brush was a bit wayward and making balloons with the shadows so, gave up with that tool and used the pick tool instead which gave me more control and no bad behaving!! I put a texture on the background. I find shadows can be a bit of a challenge and can vary from time to time dependant on luck rather than judgement to make them look plausible. Could do better with more practice...

[Daniel Hess]

Here is my attempt at the tutorial flowers in Lesson 4.  Gonna try out the bonus page now.

[Rene Marker]

10 hours ago, Cassel said:

@Rene MarkerYou are correct in using the reverse shadow only in some instances. I think that they are not essential every time, especially if the papers already have textures and obvious differences with the surrounding papers. The lifted shadows on the bottom photo look the most realistic. The top photo MIGHT have used more feathering before the blur. I think the same thing applies to the ribbon. It is a good idea to try on a ribbon as that is an element that can easily be "lifted" in a project.

I think the selection area of the top photo is the issue because I used the exact same setting for both photos. I'm still confused about how you decide where to make the selection like how close to where you want the lift to be. I did play with it some more last night and the results were a little better. I even played with the brightness on the photo and that really did help on the top photo. I also played with doing a lifted shadow on a butterfly. I avoid using them but with a lifted shadow, I would use them more. Still need more practice!

As for the reverse shadow, I tend to use papers that are very similar in color so they end up looking flat. The reverse shadow gives just enough depth and helps to show the subtle texture. I always use very subtle texture papers as well.

[Sue Thomas]

3 hours ago, Michele said:

Day Two
As usual, I'm a little behind. I had a birthday card to make yesterday.

 

I love the colours you used.  Beatifully done! 

[Sheila Hogg]

My result for lesson 4. Making me think a bit...

[Donna Sillia]

My day 4

[Rene Marker]

I used settings very close to the video for the 6 flowers in the tutorial.

For the extra 4 flowers, I used the settings shared with me by a creative team member of a popular store that uses PSP. She does a lot of flower/foliage clusters and I asked her how she shadowed them. She also does not use any warp on the shadows but you wouldn't know it because of her settings. She has a basic setting that she tweaks as she scraps each element. Her cluster (flower/foliage/etc) is 25-42-61-66. I started with this setting then tweaked if needed. I then positioned the 4 flowers into a cluster and used the warp brush on each of them.

I used to use settings much like Carole's but was never satisfied with my clusters (and I like to cluster although not as elaborate as many creative team scrappers). Once I started using Jill's settings, I loved how my clusters looked. 

Clustering is not for everyone though. I'm just sharing what works for me and the way I scrap.

[Daniel Hess]

My day 4 "bonus" flowers: 

[Mary Solaas]

Day 3. I, too, need practice.  I did as instructed for the 2 photos, but added on the top photo an adjustment of brightness because as the corner is lifted, the light is shining and brightening that corner - just a little bit.  On the bottom photo, I adjusted the brightness downward as the only corner that will reflect some of the light as it is lifted is the bottom right.

[fiona cook]

Lesson 4

Pink flower like a card shadow 20: 20: 70: but increased the blur: 30 No Warp Brush

Pale purple rose: 30:30:70:40 Used Warp brush and reduced the opacity of the shadow afterwards in the layers palette which makes me wonder how you can go back to the drop shadow settings after actioning it to see what values were set?

Deep purple rose and Lacey red flower : 50:50:50:80, using Warp brush on both and tried using more of the edge of the warp brush this time not the centre.

 

[Corrie Kinkel]

Day 4 and it is very interesting to see the different flowers with their also different shadows; it lets me think a bit more about the shadows that I always tend to use.

For the tutorial page I used the shadows with the settings from the tut and the warpbrush for 3 of the flowers. No warpbrush on the dahlia as mentioned in the tut. No warpbrush on the bottom right flower because it looks to me that the petals are curled a bit inwards (I don't know a better way to describe it), so they do not need to have their shadows altered. The flower on the bottom left is already looking lifted and when I tried to alter the shadow with the warpbrush it didn't looked better or right, so no warpbrush in the end.

For lack of time I used the practice flowers as they are with different shadows and as you can hopefully see only one has its petals lifted with the warpbrush because I think that it only works for those flowers that have defined petals that can be lifted individually.

  The pink flower (bottom right): 20/20 - 54 - 24 (blur) with the warpbrush on some of the petals.                                                                                                                                                               The lilac flower: 40/40 - 42 - 50  no warpbrush                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     The purple flower: 50/50 - 38 - 75  no warpbrush   and the red flower: 40/40 - 46 - 50 also no warpbrush

[Julie Magerka]

Lessons 3 & 4

The Warp Brush is not my favourite tool for this effect (lifted), but I just kept undoing and redoing. Thank goodness for a Script and the other method using the Perspective Tool.

Since I won't be entering any contests for Best Use of Shadows on a Layout, I will have to accept my limitations. (See photo 2)

Edited August 22 by Julie Magerka

[Jeni Simpson]

Lesson 3
I am behind since the ctrl z was used so often on this one 
I decided to let it go and send in what I have done, to get feedback, at least.
I think scripts might save me some time with lifted shadows, I don't feel too confident at this stage.
I think the second photo looks better.
Jeni

[Julie Magerka]

9 minutes ago, Jeni Simpson said:

Lesson 3
I am behind since the ctrl z was used so often on this one 
I decided to let it go and send in what I have done, to get feedback, at least.
I think scripts might save me some time with lifted shadows, I don't feel too confident at this stage.
I think the second photo looks better.
Jeni

I agree, the 2nd one looks very lifted.

[Jeni Simpson]

Lesson 4
This was an interesting lesson.
I created the background using the top right flower and kaleidoscope. I like what I got and have saved it into my backgrounds folder.
The only flower I used the warp brush was the lower right flower.
The practice lesson

The tutorial lesson

Thanks, Carole, I will need lots more study on shadows, I see.
Jeni

[Anja Pelzer]

I used shadows from Cassel and tryed also the one from Rene Marker, 

 

here I erased the middle of the shadow from the red flower , because by zooming in it look like a bit rransparent

[Gerry Landreth]

Day 4.

I'm improving at visualizing what I want but slightly less at making it happen. 

Carole: regarding the feathering in yesterday's exercise, I may or may not have done that. I redid it many times and got turned around on several of them. At least, if I didn't, I felt better that I was in such good company.

[Linda J Walker]

I was planning to work on this early today, but I got distracted and pulled into something else....sigh...

 

[Carolyn Rye]

On 8/22/2024 at 1:07 AM, Ann Seeber said:

Lesson 3 - I did it two ways: the top one using cassel's script and the other by hand. I think I'll stick with the script!

@Ann SeeberI think I need the script

[Carolyn Rye]

My Lesson 4 attempt.

[Cassel]

@Cristina I am glad my feedback is well received and useful.

@Michele The "normal" shadow on the light green paper looks like it is missing. Is it the case or is it just due to the resizing (which is possible)? For the lifted shadow, try to just make it smaller. I find that the larger it is, the harder it is to make it look right.

@Sheila HoggIs it possible that the mode for the Warp Brush was not on the Push? Maybe a different mode was set? Can you check that? Using the Pick tool is a good alternative in many situations. Good work. On your flowers, it LOOKS like the shadows are a little wide on the top right and bottom right ones. The others look great.

@Daniel Hess Those flowers are looking good. Do those shadows start to make sense? For the bonus flowers, the offset looks appropriate for those but the opacity seems high and the blur a little low.

@Rene MarkerYou are bringing up a good question about where to make the selection. The answer is simple: you make the selection wherever you want based on where you plan on starting the curl of the corner. You want the shadow to gradually go from "normal", where the paper/photo is flat to gradually get blurred where it is lifted. So if you want a large area to be lifted, your selection will be larger than if you want a slight, subtle lift. Does that make sense? For the clusters, that will be on lesson 6. Stay tuned! (but yours looks good) Warping the shadow on flowers is not always necessary. In fact, I usually don't do it, but it is an option that could add a touch of realism in some situation, with some flowers (not all).

@Donna SilliaFor your flowers, be careful to NOT bring shadows upward. It looks like that on middle right flower. Do you see what I mean? the others are all in the correct angle.

@Mary Solaas Your lifted shadows look good. I think the main "issue" (and that is probably because I never explained it) is how the photo is pushed. I will need to add a lesson or a tutorial for that. In the meantime, try to not touch the photo with the center of the brush, but keep it OFF the photo. See if it helps to "curl" the photo better.

@fiona cook The shadows of those flowers look good. It seems like you are getting the hang of them. There is no SIMPLE way to retrieve the settings you used, however, if it was not too long ago, you can check in the History palette (F3), right-click on the Drop Shadow you did, copy to clipboard, and then paste it on another document (Notepad, Word, etc.). You might recognize the settings. Another way would be to check the Image Information. The settings might be saved there and you could see them.

@Corrie KinkelI am glad that these lessons are making you "think" more about the shadows. That is the goal since it will allow you to adjust each shadow based on what is logical for any particular element.

@Julie MagerkaFor your lifted corners, have a second look at the angle. Draw an imaginary line between the shadow corner and the photo corner. Does that get directed toward the light source on the top left? The other thing is that you can lower the opacity a lot on those shadows. Remember that the further the element is, the lower the opacity. On the other hand, your flowers look great.

@Jeni Simpson Despite all that work, you managed to pull out fairly good shadows for those lifted corners. For the next ones, try to add even more feathering to make a more gradual transition between the "normal" shadow and the "lifted" one. The flowers are pretty good too.

@Anja PelzerYour flowers are well shadowed. If you have a flower (or an element) that is transparent, you would likely need to lower the opacity since it would let the light through. But you have a good solution.

@Gerry LandrethVisualizing the shadows that should be associated with each element is a great start. Of course, applying it is another thing, but at least, it will allow you to decide if it matches your vision or not, so you can always tweak it as needed.

@Linda J WalkerThose flowers are quite good with their shadows. Good work.

@Carolyn RyeYou did a great job on those flowers!

Get ready for another challenge tomorrow! You will have to use that Warp Brush some more!!

[Susan Ewart]

Lesson 4

I followed the lesson for the Tutorial layout and used the warp brush on the two as shown in the video, pretty much the same settings.

the second one was harder, guessing how thick the flowers could be. I used the warp brush on the lower right one only as the other ones I thought would look weird if I did.  Also I need to get more aggressive and pull the shadow down more.  I like the warp brush though, almost more control it seems...well, sort of.  Here are the settings I used (I tried a lot of different ones, sat back and looked and tried more until I thought it was okay)

Practice layout settings: 

Top Left 50-50-45-85

Top right 40-40-40-55

Bottom Left: 35-35-35-65 (then still thought it was too dark and lowered the opacity)

Bottom Right: 20-20-55-40 (this one I used the warp brush on. Wondering if I should have pushed in the petal, like Gerry might have done on his layout.  His looks lifted and nice)

[Euka]

I think I need a new mouse/mouse pad or maybe just steadier hands!  I like how manipulating the shadow creates a more realistic effect - BUT - being able to move them to good effect is the tricky bit!    

@Susan Ewart  We do have wombats  but not many in my area - being nocturnal unfortunately we mainly see them as roadkill :(.

[Michele]

19 hours ago, Sue Thomas said:

I love the colours you used.  Beatifully done! 

Thank you. I picked the colors from the photo of the duck. I know you often use that method. I also use the newer color palette which helps you choose appropriate colors.