Removing Flash shadow in photoshop?

Hi all,

Wonder if anyone can help me with this. Is there any way I can remove the shadow cast by the flash in photoshop for the image below?

Thanks

It's possible, but you're probably looking at a lot of masking and/or cloning. The hard part would be separating the dark area between his left arm and the backdrop.

Shagmart, This the best I could do with Paint Shop Pro X2. Hope you don't mind !

What Floppy/Steve said.

Fixing the shadow behind the arm is going to be the most difficult. Probably the simplest and most forgiving method for fixing the shadow would be to use an IMAGE>APPLY IMAGE>BLENDING MODE: LIGHTEN, then use a mask to paint out the non-shadow remainder of the image you don't want to lighten. Selecting by painting a mask is very forgiving; mess up an edge and you can just repaint in the other color. Painting a mask also allows you to blend edges by using a softer brush.

This probably won't help you now, but in the future, get it right in the camera so you have less to fix in postprocessing.

- Put some distance between the model and the backdrop.
- Use a larger diffuser on your light.
- Use a fill flash or fill reflector.

Kind of late, but how about shooting an image of just the background, and then just cut the boy's selection (feathered) and paste... Then just fix the edges a bit or as needed...

:o)

I think ? there's a way in Photoshop or similar , of replacing the background with a fresh white one .

I guess you'd have to trace round if you will with the Marque Tool .

I agree with Floppy / Steve with getting the subject away from the background so there's less chance of putting a shadow on it .


Diffusing is a good idea - tracing paper , a clear plastic bag on the flash head is another BUT you have to remember that these things will be blocking or soaking up the flash light if you will , so you'd have to open the lens aperture a touch to compensate .

The reflector is a good idea as it would push if you like , the light back . Anything will do as a reflector , white bed clothes even ! .


The most important thing is to have the flash as far away from the lens axis as possible , you could put a old film flash on a bracket or use a hammerhead Metz / Sunpak on Auto as long as the flashes sensor is near to the subject .

These can be obtained quite cheaply second hand . For instance I've a Sunpak " Potato masher " which I bought from a car boot sale for £4 GBP .

What you have to check on Google is Flash Trigger voltage , some old warhorses like the Vivitar 283 have high trigger voltages , that may not have harmed a old manual film camera but would fry the electronics in a Digital camera .

For instance I use a Wein Safe Sync on my elderly Canon Powershot G2 - snappy / back up Digital to get the voltage down to less than 6 volts .

To show the importance of moving the subject away from the background - flash used was the Sunpak " Potato Masher " - the flash head was angled upright into a clear plastic bag - the top of the bag was the ceiling if you will , and the bag was the diffuser .

WAY too easy! I edited it in Photoshop Elements and here is how I did it.

First I separated the photo into its elements. That would be the subject (foreground) and the background in separate layers. This is how it looks once done and please note the layers palette on the right hand side:



That allows me to work both elements separately. One important rule here is to ALWAYS have the background in a layer BELOW the foreground. That is a rule and you know I don't make them lightly. Failure to do that will cause an unwanted aura to appear around your foreground subject if using blurs or anything like that.

Once that was done, I simply selected the background layer and cloned the left side to the right side.

Next I selected the foreground layer and went to Enhance/Adjust Lighting/Shadows-Highlights and reduced the shadows on the foreground by 25% Next I went to Filters/Adjustments/Photo Filters and added a 25% warming filter. Here is the before and after shot:



Since I don't know the true accurate color of the jacket he is wearing, the color may be a little off. The warming filter affected the entire foreground subject and that includes the jacket. This could have easily been done without the warming filter but I wanted to add a slightly more lifelike look to his skin parts.

I'm new here and didn't see any of the answers until I'd finished, so I'll still upload it. Basically I masked the boy out, cloned/bandaided the background in, put the boy back in, then dodged the shadows around his face/fingers. Last I put the original back over it, fading it way down, but keeping a shade of the original shadow that way so that he wouldn't stand out too much.