Smooth a wall

[Damien Symonds]

Download the PSD

You'll find both the versions in that PSD.  The second version is the one that's presently turned on.

[meris]

I mean retaining the shadow behind his arm on right, or is it a new painted shadow?

[Damien Symonds]

Not painted.  Never painted.

Take a look at the PSD, you'll see it.

[meris]

I see. How do you construct the gradient in the fill layer?

How do you know how many points you want? Do you just dropper it and keep adding until happy?

[Damien Symonds]

Yeah, I just fiddled.

A bit more about gradients here.

[Damien Symonds]

It goes without saying that this is slow at first, as you're learning how to choose the right gradients for the right situations.  But like anything, it will speed up with practice, and I reckon you're going to get a LOT of practice.

[meris]

I'm having trouble creating the shadows back. It's a standing group shot so I need a bunch of them. I tried making a radial gradient, and the same shape as a mask so that it only affects a spot. then making a bunch of them.

But when checking these shadows are making ring bands and are not smooth. What's the correct way to do it?

[Damien Symonds]

May I see?

[meris]

Can you see it here?

Also I want to make some oval shaped shadows, not just round - how would I do that? Tried to stretch a ball, makes even worse bands.

[Damien Symonds]

I need to see the whole photo.  Before and after your background fix.

And no, there's definitely no banding there.  It must be your screen.  What screen do you have?

[meris]

Using eizo cg277 self calibrates periodically.

Sent you a dropbox. In the original, there's a faint halo to the couple's head on the left. That actually showed up in a print worse than in screen.

Final one has a few bands I can see in the round shadows. I tried to make an oval shadow by stretching the round one, and that has really bad bands but at least that's expected.

[Damien Symonds]

Let's go back a further step.  May I see the SOOR?

[meris]

well it's a composite so the right family is changed. Look in the folder again.

[Damien Symonds]

Please Meris, I can't stress this enough:  You must never crop during editing.

[meris]

Oh I have a big one in psd

[Damien Symonds]

Ok, may I see the swapped one at full size, then?  Not cropped?

[meris]

OK I put that in, but it's saved with the bg change already.

[Damien Symonds]

Thanks.

I finally understand what you mean about the halo.  Sorry about my denseness.

But it's no biggie.  I just used a little bit of burning on a D&B layer.

Download PSD

[meris]

What do you think about the fact I can hardly see it on screen, but it gets multiplied by print? I'm not sure how to avoid this mistake in future, unless i stare at each area at 200%. Is there a way to see things like this more easily?

[Damien Symonds]

That's a lab issue.  If you're ever testing a new lab, make sure that is one of the files you send.