Shadow Workshop 2024

[Susan Ewart]

37 minutes ago, Anja Pelzer said:

my day 5 , 

I think also that I need more practice with it, 

It was a tough one for me too.

[Anja Pelzer]

and now the with 2 other ribbons 

[Carolyn Rye]

I really struggled with this lesson 5. I don't have a steady hand and trying to get the shadows right is very difficult for me.

[Jen Brown]

Shadow Workshop - Lesson 4

[Anja Pelzer]

here are my Clusters 

I used BFCoffee by Just Because Studio    

[Sheila Hogg]

Ok, number 5 and it's the best I can do after many goes at it and deleting several times. Shadows are definitely not easy. Didn't really enjoy this one.

Edited August 24 by Sheila Hogg

[Rene Marker]

I first did it the way I used to shadow (but am not posting it) because I wanted to see if there was any difference in how the shadows worked. To my eye, I saw no difference on the elements so all the extra deleting above elements was just extra work. On the practice I used pretty much the same shadows as Carole for this posted version. The only difference between her version and my other was the shadow on the flower and the frame was a different opacity than Carole's settings.

The second image is a cluster I made using elements from a Christmas kit. The shadows used on it were the shadow settings given to me by Jill with some tweaking as I felt needed. As you can see I had a base of a journal card then started layering above it and even included a curly ribbon. This is how I use curly ribbons on my layouts... hide most of it in a cluster.

One piece of advice I got about clusters was to always have an odd number of elements in the cluster. Carole's has 5, mine has 11. My cluster will be used on a cover page layout for a series of layouts I do every December called "Document Your December". A layout for each day of the month. I've done this every year since 2017.

I also spent some time looking at layouts with clustering in a gallery and I could not see that any of them went the extra steps of deleting parts of shadows. And, they all look realistic to me! However, I can see that it could be useful in some clusters so won't rule out never using it in the future.

 

[Anne Lamp]

I just wanted to say this has been very informative.  I have watched each days vid and played around some. I don't do a lot of clusters, ribbons etc. but if I do, I have all the links saved including the link to this page.  I have read a lot of Cassel's comments to each member and some of the comments by other members.  There is a lot of useful info in them that I may use at some time.  Thanks Cassel and everyone that posted there projects and or commented on others. 

[Ann Seeber]

1 hour ago, Rene Marker said:

This is how I use curly ribbons on my layouts... hide most of it in a cluster.

What a good idea, Rene! Very effective, too. And the advice to use an odd number of items. Excellent!

[Corrie Kinkel]

1 hour ago, Rene Marker said:

I first did it the way I used to shadow (but am not posting it) because I wanted to see if there was any difference in how the shadows worked. To my eye, I saw no difference on the elements so all the extra deleting above elements was just extra work. On the practice I used pretty much the same shadows as Carole for this posted version. The only difference between her version and my other was the shadow on the flower and the frame was a different opacity than Carole's settings.

The second image is a cluster I made using elements from a Christmas kit. The shadows used on it were the shadow settings given to me by Jill with some tweaking as I felt needed. As you can see I had a base of a journal card then started layering above it and even included a curly ribbon. This is how I use curly ribbons on my layouts... hide most of it in a cluster.

One piece of advice I got about clusters was to always have an odd number of elements in the cluster. Carole's has 5, mine has 11. My cluster will be used on a cover page layout for a series of layouts I do every December called "Document Your December". A layout for each day of the month. I've done this every year since 2017.

I also spent some time looking at layouts with clustering in a gallery and I could not see that any of them went the extra steps of deleting parts of shadows. And, they all look realistic to me! However, I can see that it could be useful in some clusters so won't rule out never using it in the future.

 

Rene I like your cluster but I hope you don't mind me saying so, but to my eye some of the shadows you used are not coherent with the light coming from the top left. For instance the big red bauble has a shadow on its left side where the light is coming from as well as some parts of the white ribbon and the greenery.

[Rene Marker]

12 minutes ago, Corrie Kinkel said:

Rene I like your cluster but I hope you don't mind me saying so, but to my eye some of the shadows you used are not coherent with the light coming from the top left. For instance the big red bauble has a shadow on its left side where the light is coming from as well as some parts of the white ribbon and the greenery.

Yeah, I know that but once it is on a layout, it won't be as noticeable. 

[Daniel Hess]

I did this one and it seemed to go more easily than I was expecting.  Of course, I started out and in the 3rd iteration of the first element, I chose the wrong shadow...wasn't paying attention that Shadow 2 was on top of Shadow 1.  But I Zeee'd out and started over and kept it straight.

[Susan Ewart]

12 hours ago, Anja Pelzer said:

and now the with 2 other ribbons 

These are really nice!

2 hours ago, Rene Marker said:

Yeah, I know that but once it is on a layout, it won't be as noticeable. 

Maybe you had cross lighting, yet still from overhead, just angled and one light with more intensity than the other.  I use it in photography.  It depends on the light; hard light soft light, the size of the light source, light bouncing in either by ambient light or a reflector (scrim) and especially the distance of the light to the subject which will determine the light drop off (think of the inverse square law) and how hard and/or soft a shadow is.  for example, in side lighting you can get a hard shadow and fill some of it in with a reflector and keep some of the hardness in an area with a flag or a black reflector (which of course doesn't reflect at all).   Since I work with continuous lights and low shutter speed my stuff is very contaminated with ambient light bouncing all over.  At least I'm practicing set ups for when one day my pipe dream comes true and I own studio strobes.  So, really I guess we shouldn't sweat it cause somewhere a real life situation will look just like that and you'll be like hey, check that out, life imitating my layout!

Edited August 24 by Susan Ewart

[Susan Ewart]

Lesson 6

Whew!  Call the fire department, cause my grey cells are sizzling!  I'm going to try a number 2 version, but I need to put my head in the freezer for a bit.  I too, kept going to the wrong shadow layer and I'm looking at the shadows thinking I don't see a difference.  I knew right away I wasn't doing it right. I started again and paused the video for each step, kept track of the settings and named the layers as well.  I'm glad to know how to do this, despite not using clusters very often.  If I could make nice ones, I'd like to be able to shadow them myself in this way.  I think this is one of those techniques that if you do it a lot, then it makes perfect sense.  You really have know where you are at all times and don't get distracted by cute furballs wanting a cuddle.

[Sheila Hogg]

Lesson 6. It was a bit tricky and if I did it again I would label each layer for better reference. Interesting to do depth shadowing this way though.

[Rene Marker]

38 minutes ago, Susan Ewart said:

These are really nice!

Maybe you had cross lighting, yet still from overhead, just angled and one light with more intensity than the other.  I use it in photography.  It depends on the light; hard light soft light, the size of the light source, light bouncing in either by ambient light or a reflector (scrim) and especially the distance of the light to the subject which will determine the light drop off (think of the inverse square law) and how hard and/or soft a shadow is.  for example, in side lighting you can get a hard shadow and fill some of it in with a reflector and keep some of the hardness in an area with a flag or a black reflector (which of course doesn't reflect at all).   Since I work with continuous lights and low shutter speed my stuff is very contaminated with ambient light bouncing all over.  At least I'm practicing set ups for when one day my pipe dream comes true and I own studio strobes.  So, really I guess we shouldn't sweat it cause somewhere a real life situation will look just like that and you'll be like hey, check that out, life imitating my layout!

Exactly! Just looking around my office I have shadows coming in from all directions. Some are harder than others. And they go all directions since some are from windows and others are from lights. One item on a wall actually has shadows on both the left side and right side. Window is to its left and a lamp is to its right. 

As one scrapper told me once shadowing is subjective and to develop a personal shadowing style. She also said that there isn't always one single light source... unless you are in a controlled environment (like a studio). Also coming from a paper scrapbooking background, there were differences in shadows when looking at the page depending on something as simple as how you are holding the page as well as what time of day or whether you are inside or outside which have different light sources. She uses PS to scrap and always starts with the same basic settings but tweaks them as she builds her layout.

I always used to stick to the top left light source on my layouts but as I've progressed and learned from those I admire over the last 15 years, I've become more subjective about shadowing. Funny thing is, when I give the books to my cousin that I do for them, the layouts that get the most compliments are my more recent layouts where I've experimented with shadowing. That makes my heart happy.

This workshop though has taught me some new tricks that I can use to further refine the shadows on my layouts. I used the warp trick today on a butterfly on a layout. It looks like it is flying!

 

[Gerry Landreth]

Day 6.

I found interesting layered clusters at Digital Scrapbook. I deleted the shadow layers and started from scratch.

[Corrie Kinkel]

1 hour ago, Susan Ewart said:

Lesson 6

Whew!  Call the fire department, cause my grey cells are sizzling!  I'm going to try a number 2 version, but I need to put my head in the freezer for a bit.  I too, kept going to the wrong shadow layer and I'm looking at the shadows thinking I don't see a difference.  I knew right away I wasn't doing it right. I started again and paused the video for each step, kept track of the settings and named the layers as well.  I'm glad to know how to do this, despite not using clusters very often.  If I could make nice ones, I'd like to be able to shadow them myself in this way.  I think this is one of those techniques that if you do it a lot, then it makes perfect sense.  You really have know where you are at all times and don't get distracted by cute furballs wanting a cuddle.

You made me laugh with your comment, but you did it nevertheless, nice font btw!

[Corrie Kinkel]

1 hour ago, Gerry Landreth said:

Day 6.

I found interesting layered clusters at Digital Scrapbook. I deleted the shadow layers and started from scratch.

You found layered clusters, very nice I'll have a look there because I have a couple of clusters that are in a kit but they aren't layered so I only can shadow on the outside.

[Corrie Kinkel]

For me this is logical and therefore not very complicated. No problems with unsteady hands here! I only had to keep my focus on the layers and found the trick in the video to hide the shadowed layers temporarily useful. I have no layered clusters in my stash so I made one just a simple one from elements I have. I find it easier to make a cluster when I'm working on a project and I'll will pay more attention to the shadowing on them if needed. 

[Linda J Walker]

3 hours ago, Susan Ewart said:

Lesson 6

Whew!  Call the fire department, cause my grey cells are sizzling!  I'm going to try a number 2 version, but I need to put my head in the freezer for a bit.  I too, kept going to the wrong shadow layer and I'm looking at the shadows thinking I don't see a difference.  I knew right away I wasn't doing it right. I started again and paused the video for each step, kept track of the settings and named the layers as well.  I'm glad to know how to do this, despite not using clusters very often.  If I could make nice ones, I'd like to be able to shadow them myself in this way.  I think this is one of those techniques that if you do it a lot, then it makes perfect sense.  You really have know where you are at all times and don't get distracted by cute furballs wanting a cuddle.

I'm with Susan on this one! I watched the video, had to stop a few times and rewatch sections. I need an uninterrupted period to try it and not miss a step!

And I'm with Rene too -- not sure I am seeing the difference.

[Susan Ewart]

4 hours ago, Rene Marker said:

Exactly! Just looking around my office I have shadows coming in from all directions. Some are harder than others. And they go all directions since some are from windows and others are from lights. One item on a wall actually has shadows on both the left side and right side. Window is to its left and a lamp is to its right. 

As one scrapper told me once shadowing is subjective and to develop a personal shadowing style. She also said that there isn't always one single light source... unless you are in a controlled environment (like a studio). Also coming from a paper scrapbooking background, there were differences in shadows when looking at the page depending on something as simple as how you are holding the page as well as what time of day or whether you are inside or outside which have different light sources. She uses PS to scrap and always starts with the same basic settings but tweaks them as she builds her layout.

I always used to stick to the top left light source on my layouts but as I've progressed and learned from those I admire over the last 15 years, I've become more subjective about shadowing. Funny thing is, when I give the books to my cousin that I do for them, the layouts that get the most compliments are my more recent layouts where I've experimented with shadowing. That makes my heart happy.

This workshop though has taught me some new tricks that I can use to further refine the shadows on my layouts. I used the warp trick today on a butterfly on a layout. It looks like it is flying!

 

That's awesome Rene.  I always love to hear your insights.  And a big take away from what you said it to experiment.  Being able to make a butterfly fly is what it's all about isn't it.  And what a feeling to achieve a look you wanted too.  

[Susan Ewart]

3 hours ago, Corrie Kinkel said:

You made me laugh with your comment, but you did it nevertheless, nice font btw!

The font is Neug Asia, probably from CF and most definitely more readable the bigger it is.  I just learned that.  I'm reading a book called Just My Type, about fonts and a bit a history, politics and some humor about fonts and how they all started.  One of the things when Type designers were designing was how readable the font(typeface?) is when it's small.  Some fonts are great small and are great fonts, but only when they are big.  I noticed if this got too small it would make your eyes go wonky.  

[Linda J Walker]

I think I got all the steps here, don't think I missed any. I would not be able to do it again without the video. 

And personally, I feel 'tricky and tedious' may be an understatement.

 

[Susan Ewart]

Lesson 6 Extra

Wowzers people, this is some kind of hard stuff!  

I got pretty mixed up and I made a cluster (I wont be quitting my day job anytime soon) that some of the shadows wouldn't show up because of the angle.  oops.  I finally had to name them with the names in the video (tag, ribbon, frame, background) because I was getting so mixed up with where I was at.  I had a leaf, a tag, a plant sprig and a background.  I did the shadows even though you couldn't see them (because of the angle).  I like knowing how to do this technique, and I know I need to get a lot more practice.  It probably wont show up, but I do see the difference on sprig as one shadow on the sprig is darker than the shadow (from the flower) on the background.