Photoshop Help with Shadow

[mike.online]

Hi all,

earlier this week I shot a self-portrait for use by a Not-for-profit I'm invested in. I shot it at home with two speedlights (580exII and sb800), and I'm really happy with the result. However I do have one problem with the photo, there is a large shadow cast by my key light in the background (above the monitor). I've tried to clone/patch it out in photoshop, but I can't seem to make it look good. Anyone know a good way to work with something like this (or point me to a good tutorial) ?



for more details how I set up the lights, lens, focus and composition as well as some pull back set-up shots you can see them on my blog: Mapping Across Borders - creating a self portrait

Thanks,
- Mike

[Lightbox]

Several ways you can do this in Photoshop as usual, you could create a mask around just the shadow itself and use levels to lighten the shadow, but wall has a gradient from darker on the left to lighter on the right. I just created a mask for the entire wall then created a new blank layer with this mask. Now select a big soft brush and sample a colour from the darker area in the lower left and paint the left half of the wall, select a lighter colour from the far right and paint in from the right to mix nicely with the darker left side.





When you do this it pays to add a small amount of grain to the painted layer, this helps break up any banding you get with smooth gradients and also matches the grain with the wall on the far left of the image.


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[MrSmith]

i would do something similar with a mask but create a couple of layers from the darkest and lightest colours on the wall then grad them over the top of each other playing with the opacity and grads to get the right kind of transition of tones that looks real, then add a bit of noise.

[mike.online]

This is great, Thanks very much for the help, I'll be trying to make it look just as good myself