Seeing Shadows
Russ Burden
Rating: 9 / 10
Shadows can be found in many places and in many shapes and sizes. The more you begin to notice them, the more you'll find yourself pointing your lens at them.
Shadows can be effectively used to focus a viewer's attention. The shadows help focus the viewer's attention by removing detail from the less important parts of the image. Figure 2 uses shadow for this purpose.
Shadows
The power of shadows is in their potential to reveal as well as to conceal. Tip: Back Lights and Low-angle Lights can exaggerate shadows for dramatic or stylistic purposes.
Avoid Shadows, Glare, and Reflection
The key to successful texture is to get an evenly lit image. When you shoot textures, the best time is when the weather is cloudy and there is no direct sunlight which lights the surface you shoot.
Fixing Shadows ("Straight" photography with an emphasis on anthropology. Features include in-depth pages on Marion Post Wolcott, best known for her FSA work)
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Natural shadows
One of the most effective ways to use light is to recreate the effect that nature might have provided. On a summer’s day, late in the morning, the sunshine would have given a pattern of shadows much like this.
Shadows can be a photographer's nemesis (as discussed in the previous Tip #13), but they can also inspire a photographer and provide yet another way to express visual ideas creatively! ...
Shadows
The shadows are the darkest part of an image, just as highlights are the brightest.
Sharing
Sharing photos generally involves uploading them to a website (like Flickr) so that other people can view them or even order prints and photo gifts.
Shadows/Highlights is Photoshop's simple tone-mapping operator. It will lighten and darken shadows and highlights; use Amount. It will accentuate contours; use Radius.
Shadows and reflections can be part of the photo. In the picture to the left, NYI Instructor Jerry Rice used glossy blue paper as the background. At first glance, you might think this is the blue of the sky.
Shadows can create unexpected patterns like in this image by flickr user CatDancing. With the pattern superimposed, the picture draws attention.
shadows captured, highlights lost
both shadow and highlight details are visible
Usage: Dynamic range expansion is turned on/off by ticking the corresponding checkbox in the processing options dialog.
Shadows (Text and Box) "
CSS now lets you create drop shadows on text, and on the box of an element. Explore CSS3 transforms (supported in Opera 9, Firefox 3.5 and Safari 1.2 and higher), and box-shadows (supported in Firefox 3.5 and Safari 3.1).
Shadows going blue isn't always a sign of excessive UV. Shadows are normally illuminated only by the blue sky - which is of course blue - and so shadow regions tend to be blue.
'Shadows Smoothing' and 'Shadows Clipping' affect the contrast of the shadows in the image and how deep and dark they look.
overshadows the other facts in a story. An example, "Thank goodness the washer was full of water," said the Ship's Serviceman who used the drain hose to put out a laundry fire. g. Direct Address.
The Shadows/Highlights Adjustment in Photoshop
Stretch your image's dynamic range
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Are shadows causing the finer points of your photos to be obscured? Follow this simple tutorial to rescue them.
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Recreate the effect of a graduated filter in Photoshop ...
The shadows are all blocked up in this original capture from Frenchman Coulee in eastern Washington
The 'marching ants' selection line after selecting the luminosity channel
Icon at the bottom of the channels palette load a channel as the selection ...
The shadows slider works like the black point slider in levels and shares the alt(opt) key trick. I’m often willing to let some shadows go black, but generally only thin lines or scattered pixels.
Avoid shadows across faces by putting light and reflected light on the front of the subject. See "lighting hints."
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How do shadows and reflections work in photography.
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A beautiful face, a big mouth, and a lone llama ...
Result: shadows behaved as expected with a bracket; otherwise, no difference whatsoever with frame 14 or 15 above.
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Reset the Shadows and Tonal Width settings to about 30%. Then click on the Save As Defaults button at the bottom of the dialog box.
Blocked Shadows
Term for lack of, or loss of, shadow detail in a photographic image, usually the result of underexposure or lower resolution (and less dynamic) imaging sensor.
plugging shadows
destruction of, or loss of, detail in the shadow areas of a halftone film or print.
Light and Shadows
The right balance and interplay of light and shadows create beautifully exposed pictures.
The graphic shadows (#4) weren’t taken from the top of a building. Instead, I shot from a third-story open hallway that looked down on the street. You don’t have to be 50 stories above the city to take advantage of an aerial view.
Light and shadows - shooting at an angle that will result in a dark frame, or the opposite - using the flash to brighten the frame, will reduce the dominance of a frame.
Filling dark shadows in your photographs is a good use of your flash.
Use your flash judiciously, and don't use it when you don't have to.
Watch out for shadows on the motorcycle you are shooting. These can come from trees, people or the bike parked next to it. They can be hard to minimize or eliminate except by asking the biker to move his machine to a better location.
CONFLICTING SHADOWS - Shadows that point in the direction of the main light in a studio lighting set-up.
Exposing for Shadows
This is a method that fully states "expose for shadows, print for highlights"". The theory is that if you get shadow detail, you can print it, as well as the highlights.
Under Exposure. Shadows start to 'block up' and become solid black. Highlights and colours will become darker. Still viewable or printable using a bright light source. With reversal/transparency film you must avoid over exposure.
Filling in the Shadows
Since the sun was positioned behind Rohan, camera right, I asked James to stand with the LiteDome/LiteReach setup on camera left and angle the light downward somewhat to counter-balance the light from the sun.
Very light skin; shadows in snow with acute side lighting
VIII
Lightest tone with texture: textured snow ...
In this scene, the shadows were about 2,000 times darker than the highlights (11 stops). As explained in the dynamic range topic, a digital camera could capture either image A or image B.
While most cameras come with a flash, that can wash out the image while casting unpleasant shadows on the background. Soft outdoor lighting works well if the sun isn't so bright it casts shadows.
bounce flash - reflecting a flash from a wall or ceiling (or perhaps a special flash diffusing reflector, such as a brolly) to soften the harsh shadows and contrast produced by direct flash.
It is used when you want to fill in shadows when the subject is back or side lit. In these situations shadow areas can be so dark in the image that they show little or no detail.
You attach your camera and two diffused light sources (ordinary floods will work fine) set up on either sides to illuminate your subject and remove shadows. Some enlargers can be used as copy stands.
If your highlights are washed out or your shadows are blocked, you're putting yourself at a disadvantage. If you can see detail on the negative, make sure the lab printing your work brings that detail out.
Photos should be well-lit.
Which way are the shadows falling? Unless you want a silhouette effect, where your subject is black against an interesting background, it's generally best to shoot with the sun behind you. How is the light affecting your subject?
Hard light coming from a source that's small compared to the subject, casts hard shadows and has high contrast. Outdoors you see this light on a bright sunny day.
The longer working distances also help to keep you from casting shadows on your subject when doing close up work with flowers and other stationary subjects. The 100mm macro is probably the best all around focal length range for macro lenses.
Dynamic range is the amount of detail your camera can record between highlights and shadows in an image. Scenes that have bright sunlight and deep shadows are said to have a high dynamic range.
In fact, it is most often used where there is a big contrast between very bright highlights and deep shadows. The small burst lowers the contrast by mainly affecting the dark areas.
This takes away harsh shadows that can ruin photos, especially photos of people as they won't have dirty big shadows around their eyes.
Shadows come alive and retain purple and blue hues due to scattered light. The contrasts of red and blue are at a pinnacle, and will arguably provide for the best landscape pictures.
As noted in the section on fill flash, a common application for flash is lightening shadows and toning down the high-contrast nature of full sunlight. Adding a subtle catchlight in someone's eyes is another.
Reflectors are often used in photography to soften the effect of the main light or to bounce illumination into subjects shadows. Light does not always fall exactly where you want it. For this reason reflectors are used.
We've all had it happen, we photograph a beautiful scene but when we view the image the sky is a blob of white and there are giant patches of black where we saw mild shadows on the ground.
When the sun hovers directly above, deep shadows appear in the eyes, under the nose, and under the chin. To make matters worse, the lit portions of the face tend to be washed out.
The bright overhead light creates bright surfaces and hard shadows, resulting in too much contrast. This is especially problematic when photographing people; the sunlight creates dark shadows across their faces.
Bright midday light will either produce shadows on your baby's face or cause him to close his eyes or squint - neither result is what we want. If you're taking photos throughout the day, try moving your baby under the shade of a tree or umbrella.
Excessive noise, which is most often seen first in shadows, usually results in an objectionable-looking image.
Shadows coming toward the camera exaggerate depth and distance and help lead the eye into the scene.
Fill Flash - The most popular use for flash is to fill (lighten) harsh shadows in sunlit outdoor portraits. Most cameras with built-in flash units offer both auto-flash and fill-flash modes.
Fill-Flash Mode is used when the ambient light level is such to give you a good overall exposure but you need to add some additional light to bring out the detail that are in the shadows.
I call it "Lighten Shadows". By loading the luminosity mask (Alt-Ctrl-~), inverting it (Shift-Ctrl-I), then creating a Levels layer, you can reduce contrast without killing saturation like Gamma would.
 See also: Light, Photograph, Image, Camera, Photography
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