In article ,
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I have Googled and found some tutorials on how to remove shadows caused by flash shots of people against flat backgrounds, but my results haven’t been terrific. The best results I’ve achieved have been pretty laborious/painstaking, and they’re (just) OK – I wonder if folks have magic suggestions for doing it better. (Hope springs eternal, but I don’t count much on it… 🙂 )
TIA,
Jason
Jason,
As you have heard in other replies, bounce is a better solution, or a diffuser on the flash, mounted high and to the side of the lens axis. A bit of distance between the subject and the background surface helps too.
In PS (or other image manipulation programs), the best way to reduce the shadow IS laborious. One needs to Ctrl-J (duplicate the Layer), mask the subject (hair can be a real time-waster and there are some good tutorials on the Web for doing so – I’ll get you a URL, if you require), invert the Selection, then work on aspects of the shadow, i.e. contrast (Levels or Curves), and the softness (Gaussian Blur, or similar), knowing that to isolate just the shadow from the background and then Blur JUST the shadow can take a very, very long time. However, if one is shooting a person, then a total blur on the background would probably be in order. You might get a bit lucky, and be able to Blur the Background Layer (I’d change its name to something else to make sure that it is unlocked), and then use Layer Mask on your dupe Layer, to "paint" out the background in it, leaving the blurred background from the underlying Layer visible. You might also darken it a bit, when in Levels, or Curves, to "pop" your subject out from it. The trick will be to make sure that that part of the subject, appearing on the bottom Layer, doesn’t extend around the subject in the dupe Layer. One could adjust the Scale of the lower Level, to make it a bit smallere, because as you Blur it, it will "grow" slightly in size.
With time, and practice, you can do some pretty good stuff, however the lighting on your subject will still be un-diffused flash, which is less than flattering.
Hunt
PS let me know about the hair-mask tutorial, and I’ll go dig for it.
