Now, fairly recently I shared this portrait
and when I did,
I got lots of great comments, but also lots of questions
asking how I did the shadow on the wall and the floor.
Was the light
on the other side of a window?, or did I cut out a shape
and put it in front of the light to cast a shadow?
Well, I can't lie., it was all done
using a plug in that I have in Photoshop.
So let's just dive in and I'll show
you exactly what it is and how to use it.
Okay, so the plug in is called Optics,
and it's made by Boris FX,
who incidentally, are not sponsoring this video.
Boris FX are well known throughout the movie
industry for creating special effects,
and they've made this plug in for use on still images.
So here in Photoshop
is the portrait with the shadow, and here it is without.
So to add the shadow, I'll first of all create a duplicate
of the background layer by holding down the command key
on Mac or control key on Windows and pressing J.
Then to give me much more options later I'll go to filter
convert for smart filters.
We now see the icon in the bottom
right of the thumbnail
indicating that it is now a smart object.
Next, I go to filter Boris FX and optics.
When the plug in first opens,
it asks if you want to
apply the same filter and preset that you used last time.
In this case, I'll say no.
At the bottom of the screen we can see some of the filters
and effects that are available and there are a lot.
But for the shadow effect, we want the light section.
When I click on it, you can see straight away
we have a shadow effect in the preview.
Using the visual overlay, I can reposition the shadow,
resize it and rotate it.
On the right hand side of the screen
there are many more controls available, such as blurring
and resizing.
Now, once we choose a filter or effect, over on the left
hand side, it opens up further to reveal lots more variations.
And we can see a list of categories
or we can just scroll through.
The shadow effect I want
is in the Windows and Shutters section,
and there's lots of them.
But the one I want you can see here
with the star symbol, meaning I've made it a favorite.
So I'll reposition it
and I'll scale up
and drag it into the upper left
of the portrait.
I'll also add a bit more blur to soften it.
I can also change the opacity,
but I'll keep it at 100 just for this video.
Now I also want a shadow
effect on the floor and I have a couple of ways to do this.
I could just create a new layer and then look for the shadow
that I want., but in this case I'll just duplicate
the one I already have, which now gives me two shadows.
I'll zoom out
and then I'll
use the corner pins to change the perspective of the shadow,
and then I'll drag it into place.
So now we have the shadows applied.
However, I don't want the shadow to be hitting the subject
of the portrait.
So this is where I would use a layer mask.
Now I could just apply this effect, send it into Photoshop
and then add a layer mask and use a brush
to brush away the shadow from where I don't want it to be.
However, the masking that's available in optics
is incredibly easy to use and really clever.
I'll click to add a layer mask and when I do, there
are a number of different types I could choose from.
I'm going to use EZ Mask.
Now when we use EZ Mask, we tell optics where
we want the effect visible or not by applying
some simple brushstrokes using these tools.
So I choose the foreground brush to paint in green
to say where I want the effect visible and simply brush
a few strokes over the area, and I don't have to
be accurate at all.
Then I choose the background brush to paint in red.
to say where
I don't want the effect visible, which is on the subject.
Now once I've added a few loose strokes, I then click
to generate the mask and moments later it's done.
You can see now when I turn the wall shadow
effect off and on how it looks.
And here's the mask view for that area.
Next, I need to take the shadow effect
off the subject on the floor,
and rather than creating a new mask,
I can simply click and drag the one I've already made up on
to that layer.
And that's it.
I click apply and optics sends the image back into Photoshop
with the shadow effect applied and masked out where I want.
This is before and after and you can see when I zoom
in how good that mask is.
Now, of course, we made this a smart object,
so if I double click on it, it then opens optics.
We're asked if we want to apply
the last used preset or filter, and we click yes.
Now, even if you've used optics after doing this
particular picture and your’ve used other kinds of filters,
when you click yes optics knows which filter it was that
you used when you edited that particular image.
So it does apply the correct one.
Once back in optics, we can of course, make any changes
we want.
So that's optics from Boris FX,
and I have not even scratched the scratch on the surface.
But if you're
somebody who uses Photoshop
and likes to create effects in your images,
then I highly recommend you take a look at this,
especially because when you add an effect, there's this time
scale that you can increase or decrease
to choose a different look of the effect.
There's even this life scale
that enables you to scroll through the life of the effect
from when it started to when it ends.
So you're not just getting one click, one look effects.
Incredible stuff.
Anyway, before I go, I just want to let you know
about a completely new and free online event
coming up on April 17th through April 20th,
the Photoshop Creativity Virtual Summit ...
19 World class instructors Teaching 36 Photoshop
classes over four days,
covering such things as special effects, textures, blending,
lighting, drawing, painting, compositing, and much more.
I've added a link in the description
where you can register for a free pass
to all of the content.
Right
that's all I wanted to share with you, so as always,
if you've got something from this video,
I'd really appreciate a thumbs up,
and if you haven't yet,
please do
click on that subscribe button because it's just a great way
that you can support this channel.
But for now, that's me. I'm done.
I'll catch in the next video.