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Hey gang! This is Deke McClelland.

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Welcome to Deke's Techniques!

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Now, a long time ago, back in year 2011, I made a couple of videos in which

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I showed you how to take a red car and first make it gold and then make it black.

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We got so much positive feedback that I thought, give the people what they want. More car stuff!

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So we're going to take this car, and we're going to mask it against this

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different background.

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It looks hopelessly fakey of course, which is why we need to mask back in its

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shadow, and this is a shadow that will work against any and all backgrounds.

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Here, let me show you exactly how it works.

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So the whole idea is I want to take this taxicab and I want to extract it from

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its mundane background using some vector masks, and then I want to place the cab

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against a more exciting background.

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Even though this is an impeccably rendered mask, the cab doesn't look like it

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belongs here because it's not interacting with its new environment by casting a shadow.

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I'm going to show you how to create that shadow in this video and that way, you

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can composite this image against any background that you like.

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Let's go ahead and switch over to this image here and notice, if I zoom out,

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that I had to slightly rotate the cab image to straighten it out, so as a

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result, we have these little wedges toward the top and along the left-hand side of the image.

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We'll make life a lot easier for ourselves

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if we go and fill those wedges with white, and you can do that by dropping

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down to the bottom of the Layers panel and clicking on the little page icon to

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make a new layer, then go up to the Layer menu, choose New, and choose

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Background From Layer, and that will create a new presumably white background,

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assuming, that is, that your background color is set to white.

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I'm going to go ahead and zoom back in.

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Now we're going to capture that shadow using the Calculations command, and

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Calculations allows you to merge two existing channels in order to create a

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base alpha channel.

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I typically look for the channels in the image that contain the most contrast,

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and in the case of this image, the red channel provides us with the brightest

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version of the shadow, also contains a lot of detail, and then the blue channel

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offers the darkest version of the shadow, along with a lot of contrast.

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So I'm going to switch back to the RGB Composite.

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Then I'll go up to the Image menu and choose the Calculations comman. And

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the first thing you want to do is make sure both of your layer options are set to Merged.

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That way, you're drawing the channels from the merge composite view instead of

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some single channel, which won't do you any good.

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Next, make sure the first channel is set to Red, as it is, and the second

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channel option, change that one to Blue, and then the Blend mode really

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depends on your intentions.

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If you want to create a really dark shadow then Multiply is a great way to go.

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If you want a high-contrast shadow, then I suggest you choose Overlay.

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I however want to stick with a pretty bright shadow, because I want to be able

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to easily see what's going on inside it,

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so I'm going to choose the Screen mode.

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We can always darken that shadow up later if we need to.

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Now, click OK to create a new alpha channel, and I like to rename these things,

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by the way, after how I got to them in the first place.

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So I'm going to call this A+B screen, and then I'm going to make a copy of it

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by dragging it and dropping it onto the little page icon at the bottom of the panel.

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Now, duplicating channels as you work is a good idea, because after all, we're

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having to work with a flat image.

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There are no layers here inside the Channels panel, and so every modification you

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make is destructive.

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So I'm going to rename this channel Clean Up, and that's exactly what I'm going to do.

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I'll grab my Brush tool, which you can get by pressing the B key.

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Make sure your foreground color is set to white, right-click inside the image,

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and make sure the Hardness value is cranked up to 100%.

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Then we want to click right along the corners of the shadow, that is, the points

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at which the shadow intersect with the car.

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So right there is one of those points.

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We want to get rid of it. And then the other one is right here along this left

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tire. Go ahead and click at that intersection as well to paint that area away.

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And then you want to paint the snivels that you see, the little sort of dirt

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flecks and stuff like that, the edges of the pebbles outside here in the larger

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area that should be white.

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Don't paint that thing away, because that's the shadow of the rearview mirror

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and we want to keep it intact.

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But this little guy needs to go, as does that guy as well.

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Do not paint away any of the shadow.

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Now, I will go ahead and switch to my Rectangle Marquee tool by pressing the M key.

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I'm going to surround the top portion of the car like so, and then press

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Alt+Backspace or Option+Delete to get rid of it, click off the selection in

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order to deselect the image,

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go back to the Brush tool, and paint along this area here.

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Notice that I'm not painting away the tires, nor am I painting away the bottom

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edge of this bumper.

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I'm trying to keep that detail intact, so that we have something to overlap into, essentially.

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If you were to take a close look at this image--and depending on your monitor,

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you may see this as you work along here--

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but we actually have a little bit of light gray going on outside the shadow.

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To clean that up, go up to the Image menu, choose Adjustments, and choose the

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Levels command, or you can press Ctrl+L or Command+L on the Mac, and notice this

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little bit of histogram over here in the far right-hand side.

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If I was to drag my black slider up beyond it, you would see that we've got

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these obvious globs around my brushstrokes.

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To get rid of those, move that black slider all the way back to the left so

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that the first value is 0, and we want to take this white point value down to

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235 so that we're cutting all that stuff away. And you know what?

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Let's take it down just a little bit farther.

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We'll take it down to 225. How is that?

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We'll take it down to 225, and that way we get rid of all the stuff. Now, click OK.

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If you take a pretty close look at the shadow, you can see that it's got this

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kind of smudge in front of the driver- side tire, and that is not consistent with

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our other backgrounds at all,

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so we need to get rid of that as well as cover up some of the other sort of bits

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of gravel and gunk throughout the image, and we're going to do that starting

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with the Dodge tool, so go ahead and grab that tool.

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Notice I've reduced my Exposure value to 20%, and I am now going to paint over

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this smudge a few times here.

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So by virtue of the fact that we're working with such a low exposure value, we

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have the option to paint multiple times.

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Now, I'm going to paint over these guys as well a little bit, and then we're

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going to heal away some stuff by grabbing the standard Healing Brush tool and

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then Alt+Click to set a source, Option+ Click on the Mac, and click in order to

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paint away the details.

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Basically, we need to get rid of some of this texture, because again, we've got

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a lot of gravel underneath this car, a lot of sort of street details, and we're

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going to be setting this car onto other surfaces, onto fake grass in the case

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of that grass and sky illustration, and then we're also going to set the car on

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a real beach environment.

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That was a terrible edit.

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So I'll undo that one and try again, and might as well try painting over some

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of these details as well, see what we can do.

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Now, I'm not going to worry too much about it.

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I'm just going to try to get rid of most of the junk, because we are going to be

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following this up with a dose of Gaussian blur in just a moment.

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So I'll go ahead and paint that guy away, then Alt+Click here, and paint that

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detail away like so. And otherwise I think this looks pretty good, You

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might as well paint some these guys away in the background, and then this thing

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near the tire also wants to go.

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So paint as much as you want.

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When you grow tired of the process then here's what I want you to do.

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Just go ahead and zoom back out, go up to the Filter menu, choose Blur, and then

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choose Gaussian Blur, and where this image is concerned, I went ahead and set

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the Radius value to 8 pixels.

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If you're working with a higher- resolution image, you would go with a

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higher Radius value.

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I'll click OK in order to apply that effect, and then I'll go up to the Edit

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menu and I'll choose Fade Gaussian Blur, and I'll reduce the Opacity value to 50%.

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So we've got a 50-50 combination of blur and original detail.

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I'll click OK in order to accept that modification, and now I want to darken

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things up just slightly by pressing Ctrl+L or Command+L to once again bring up

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the Levels dialog box. I'm going to click on that central gamma value and

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press Shift+Down Arrow three times in a row to darken up that shadow and then click OK.

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Now, we're ready to add the shadow to the image.

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Go ahead and load the shadow as a selection by Ctrl+Click here on the PC and

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the Command+Click on the Mac.

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Then switch to the RGB image.

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You also need to bring up your paths, by the way,

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so go to the Paths panel and click on that car outlines collection that I've

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created for you in advance.

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Then switch over to Layers panel, and we need to mask the car for starters here,

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so click on the cab layer.

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The interesting thing is we've got both the selection outline and the

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collection of paths going on screen.

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If you were to click on the Add Layer Mask icon, you would convert the selection

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to a standard pixel-based layer mask.

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But if you press the Ctrl key or the Command key on the Mac and click on that

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icon then Photoshop ignores the selection outline and it converts the path

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outlines to a vector mask.

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Now, I'm going to turn on the Lawn layer, and I'm going to click on the Beach

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layer to make it active, and then I'll press Ctrl+Shift+N or Command+Shift+N on

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the Mac to make a new layer.

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Let's go ahead and call it Shadow and click OK.

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Notice that I've already dialed in a foreground color here that has a Hue of

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25°, a Saturation value of 75%, and a Brightness of 5%, and you can get the HSB

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sliders from the Color panel flyout menu.

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And with that color dialed in, I'll press Alt+Backspace or Option+Delete to

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fill the selection with that foreground color.

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The problem is, I've got the wrong thing selected. All right!

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I'm going to press Ctrl+Z or Command+Z on the Mac to undo the fill.

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Now, when we were working inside the Channels panel, we built the shadow

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as black against a white background, which is the easiest way to gauge our progress.

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However, what we want to do is actually select the opposite area.

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So go up to the Select menu and choose the Inverse command, or press

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Ctrl+Shift+I, Command+Shift+I on the Mac, switch back to the RGB image, and make

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sure that shadow layer is selected. Then press Alt+Backspace, or Option+Delete

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on the Mac to fill the selection with darkness.

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I'll press Ctrl+D, Command+D on a Mac.

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This is a very dark color;

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however, it's not entirely black, which means that we need to burn it into the

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background by switching the Blend mode from Normal to Multiply to produce that effect there.

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As I was telling you upfront, this is a versatile shadow, so you can set it

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against any background that will accommodate the car. All right!

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I'm going to press the F key a couple of times in order to switch to the Full

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Screen mode. Go ahead and zoom in as well.

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Here is the actual real-life shadow drawn from the original car image using

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the Calculations command, along with some alpha channel cleanup, here inside

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Photoshop.

