I had several comments on my H2H round 3 entry which pointed out the shadows that were not correct. Can anyone give me some advise on making shadows? I've heard about using gradients but I'm not really sure how it's done. If anyone knows about any tutorials that would be a help, too.

http://photoshopcontest.com/tutorials/28/shadows-part-i.html

this is a good place to start

Thanks supak0ma. I had seen that tutorial a long time ago but forgot about it

Since that tutorial uses 3D modeling software, it doesn't get into creating shadows in photoshop. Any other personal advise/sercrets would also be greatly appreciated. Thanks again

I have learnt a lot about shadows when I started to learn about lighting in photography. I can see improvement in my shadows by votes here
So if you like photography you can read some stuff and try to reproduce your knowledge in chops. It takes time tho.
P.S. Any ideas on the round 4 source?

Oh and I forget to say that I still make a lot of mistakes but at least I know the target. I know what should it look like. That helps.

Thanks Rangizzz. Round 4 source? Hmmm,...well, I'm a MotoGP fanatic so my inclination would be to replace the bicyclist with a MotoGP racer and give it a painted effect. Or place a guy spraying the wall with a water hose while the painted bicyclist runs off the wall and down into the drain. Or put something real up against the wall (like an ashtray) that the painted bicyclist is running into, causing him to crash.

This is brilliant! That would be awesome chop. Allready a winner!
But to be fair with my opponent (Supak) I'll have to come up with something mine
Damn, why didn't I think of that!

Excellent Tutorial. I love that one. I think about the matchbox shadows. I'm no shadow expert but, I usually create one on a lower layer with pure black, I either hand draw it or copy the object I want to have a shadow, make it black and distort and warp it some. Convert to smart filters and blur it. I bring down the opacity to a desired amount. The reason I use pure black is that if I want to add to the shadow or change the shape, I just use a black brush and create more shadow without having to worry about seeing your brush strokes multiply over the original shadow. I wouldn't use a gradient unless I was using a layer mask. You can read about layer masks at http://www.lunacore.com/photoshop/tutorials/tut003.htm

When I'm nearly done with the image, I think about the matchbox and those inner shadows like the line of dark shadow directly beneath the box. I usually just select the layer that I want the inner shadow to be on and use the burn tool (usually set to midtones at low exposure of say 20%) to produce an inner shadow. The shift key is your friend for creating straight lines.... click and release on one point, move the cursor over to the second point and shift click, repeat if necessary. If you are worried about messing up, then duplicate and hide a layer for backup, or find a way to do it with smart filters.

There are many ways to create shadows. Don't discount the shadows part i tutorial because it's in 3D. Just use it as a reference of the characteristics of shadows. Photography and Drawing classes are great places to start a fundamental understanding of light and shadow. Don't want to take a class? Then study the shadows of photography, black and white photography usually emphasizes the use of shadows.

Thanks glennhanna!

That was exactly the info I was looking for. I'm not a photography or photoshop expert and I was looking for some pretty straight-to-the point tips or steps that I could instantly put to use to help improve the quality of my pic's. If anyone else has additional tips, I'm sure there are a lot of people like me who could benefit from the shared knowledge.

I was thinking about using the exposure settings to remove the light from part of a layer to create a more realistic shadow (instead of placing a black layer over it). I haven't tried it yet but it makes sense in my mind. Does anyone have any ideas about that?

Here are a few tutorials.
Maybe one will be of some help.

http://layersmagazine.com/photoshop-realistic-shadows.html
http://www.photoshopcafe.com/tutorials/cast_shadow/cast_shadow.htm
http://www.ehow.com/how_2331459_make-realistic-shadow-photoshop.html
http://theboutons.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=20&Itemid=424

Perfect, jcfreak6363!

That first video is what I was looking for as far as using gradients in shadows. I had no idea how to do that before. You guys are an invaluable source of knowledge and inspiration....keep 'em coming!

Ask Marco... He's an expert with shadows...

Damnit...you beat me to it!

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One thing I do is to base how I create the shadows, on the surface they are being placed. ie color, depth, type of light hitting the surface (ambient, direct, etc.)

With less textured or flatter surfaces I usually use a painted shadow...set to appropriate blending, fading, etc. More textured surfaces call for a bit more work than that as you need to keep the depth of that surface and not to flatten it, making it look fake.Alot of times I will use adjustment layers (with masks , gradients, etc), mainly Levels or Curves( usually set to luminosity) in order to better isolate the high and low areas of the surface.

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Great advise! A lot of new ideas. I'll be putting all of this stuff to work soon....