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How to add a shadow / darkness to a face in Photoshop - Help?


coffee_king

Well-Known Member
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Hi there
I know this was done WAAAAAAY before the days of Photoshop and was done using actual lighting, but I'd like to be able to re-create a shadow over the one side of the face using photoshop. Can anyone advise advise the steps how to do it please?
I already have my image looking exactly like the below, but without the shadow.
Thanks!
john-lennon-face-shadow.jpg
 

LRG

Well-Known Member
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48
hello,
you can do it with gradient, or with a bigger but soft brush(and use lower opacity percentage like 40% or sth like that) or you can combine them. but first of all you should select the area you want to paint on. this case lasso tool or poligonal lasso can be good.
 
Last edited:

Hoogle

Guru
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I personally think the easiest way to do it is to duplicate the layer reduce the exposure of it so it looks like it is all in shadow apply a layer mask
fill the mask in black so none of that layer shows and then choose a soft low opacity brush put the brush mode to darken or lighten and swap between black and white to paint the shadow in on the layer mask
shadow orig.jpgshadow.jpg
 

coffee_king

Well-Known Member
Messages
71
Likes
3
I personally think the easiest way to do it is to duplicate the layer reduce the exposure of it so it looks like it is all in shadow apply a layer mask
fill the mask in black so none of that layer shows and then choose a soft low opacity brush put the brush mode to darken or lighten and swap between black and white to paint the shadow in on the layer mask
View attachment 7187View attachment 7188
Man alive thats one scary picture, both before and after.
 

coffee_king

Well-Known Member
Messages
71
Likes
3
hello,
you can do it with gradient, or with a bigger but soft brush(and use lower opacity percentage like 40% or sth like that) or you can combine them. but first of all you should select the area you want to paint on. this case lasso tool or poligonal lasso can be good.
Hi
I'm having trouble making this look realistic, so maybe I'm doing it wrong.
Can anyone give the exact instructions on how to do it?
Thanks
 

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