zhihao

Hey guys I seriously need to up my photoshop skills to I figured it'll be best to show what I could(or cannot) do here! This here's supposed to be a shadow cast upon a stone wall, but my stone wall's wayy too rough for my liking, i'd like something like a smoother wall with cracks? Aand the japanese character looks more like it was written on than a shadow. Thanks in advance!

img196.imageshack.us/img196/5052/kotowari2.jpg

Glory's Sun

*added the image here for you*

ok that character looks like it was just brushed on.. try doing this for a cast shadow effect..


1.open the character in a new file
2. remove the background
3. Duplicate the layer (Ctrl+j)
4. Set foreground color to black
5. fill the new layer (Ctrl+Shift+Delete)
6. add gaussian blur.. about 5 should work
7. Free transform the shape and distort it how you want it
8. duplicate the shadow layer
9. apply another gaussian blur.. 5-10 amount
10. select top shadow layer and add a layer mask
11. use the gradient tool (black and white, linear) and drag the mask from right to left
12. set shadow to multiply mode
13. set top shadow opac. to about 50%
14. set bottom shadow opac to about 30%
15. play with settings to find best look

.. the reason you are doing the gradient mask is to blend the two shadows together and give the appearance that the shadow disappears the further the image is away from the perspective..

zhihao

ha thanks! am gonna give it a shot but photoshop chose to die on me. ;_;
Any ideas regarding making the wall more...realistic? I'm trying to create something to the effect of a regular cement wall with wear and tear(cracks)

Glory's Sun

we can see how this works..

1. new image of your desired size
2. create new channel-- alpha 1
3. Fill>Render>Clouds
4. in the Channels palette, click on the RGB thumbnail. switch to the layers pallete.
5. Fill>Render>Lighting Effects
6. set light to directional
7. select Alpha 1 in texture channel dropdown hit 'ok'
8. DONE.

if you want to change the colors then play with hue/saturation levels.