Making a Cast Shadow On Photo

[itsallgoode9]

post an image of the photo you're working with....cause there might be a couple different solutions just depending on the situation you're working with.

[bobzilla]

Well, the design has changed slightly, so we won't be using that effect. But, I'd still like to know how it's done.

I just downloaded a couple of city skylines from Corbis to play around with. Basically, the idea was to have a skyline of skyscrapers casting a shadow on other buildings, or city. The idea of one city overshadowing another.

[TychoCelchuuu]

Okay, keep in mind I have no idea what I'm doing and have not tried this:

You take the skyline that you want to cast the shadow and select all the buildings. You fill that selection with black and gaussian blur it so it's fuzzy on the edges. You stick this in a transparent layer above your normal city. Rotate, skew, and scale it so that it matches the direction you want the shadow to be coming from, then turn down the layer opacity until the shadows are as dark as you want them.

Then the fun (annoying) part: go in and manually chop up the "shadow" layer and reposition it so that instead of going straight over buildings, the shadows go "up" the buildings and stuff. I'm not sure if I'm describing this well, but imagine a stick that is casting a shadow on the ground: it goes in a straight line. If you move the stick near a wall, when the shadow reaches the wall it goes "up." You'll have to manually do that for your shadow layer.

Of course, this may not work very well. Good luck?

[bobzilla]

Okay, keep in mind I have no idea what I'm doing and have not tried this:

You take the skyline that you want to cast the shadow and select all the buildings. You fill that selection with black and gaussian blur it so it's fuzzy on the edges. You stick this in a transparent layer above your normal city. Rotate, skew, and scale it so that it matches the direction you want the shadow to be coming from, then turn down the layer opacity until the shadows are as dark as you want them.

Then the fun (annoying) part: go in and manually chop up the "shadow" layer and reposition it so that instead of going straight over buildings, the shadows go "up" the buildings and stuff. I'm not sure if I'm describing this well, but imagine a stick that is casting a shadow on the ground: it goes in a straight line. If you move the stick near a wall, when the shadow reaches the wall it goes "up." You'll have to manually do that for your shadow layer.

Of course, this may not work very well. Good luck?

Well, that's pretty much the idea. I understand what you mean. I just thought there might be a way using displacement or something that would achieve that effect.

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