Use the Pen tool to make a good selection. There is a Drop Shadow in the Layer Styles.
Or, if you mean a shadow underneath the car as in real life, just brush it in. preferably on another layer beneath the car layer.
work in the auto industry and find myself removing backgrounds from photos. 1. how can i have a smooth finish without the tell-tale marks of the lasso tool. 2. How can i have a shadow underneath the cars as in real life.
1: Use "Extract" for the best cut-out Photoshop can offer.
2: Create a new empty layer and "paint" the shadow in using a large soft-edged brush at about 50% opacity. You can vary the opacity of this layer to adjust for a realistic result, as well as experimenting with the blending modes.
tried using the Extract filter but the OK and Priview buttons are inactive. They only become active when i select the Force Background. How is this?
You should read the manual on how to use Extract.
opened the Photoshop help but it doent mention the case that the Ok and Preview might be inactive.
They become active as soon as you fill the selection. As Chris Cox has said, you need to read up on how the Extract filter works. It does take some practice, but once you’ve got the hang of it, Extract will give you the best and most natual looking cut-out.
I read the Help file before i could ask, i just cant seem to follow what is all about..
i just cant seem to follow what is all about
The Chapter: To extract an object from its background is very comprehensive.
The principle is to draw a highlight around the edge of the subject so your Highlighter straddles the edge (ie half over the background and half over the subject. Then you "fill" the area to be protected. When you click "preview" the tool will compute what it perceives to be the actual edge within your highlighter path. When it presents you with the preview, you can use the edge touch-up and cleanup tools to refine the selection before hitting Okay.
Hint: If the subject extends to the edge of the canvas, you need to draw a highlight along that edge to close it the outline. Also, if you are using a thin highlight brush size, or stopped and started, you may have a small gap; this has to be closed so that there is a continuous, gapless highlight enclosing the area.
Extract tool may work in some cases, but if your background is close to the same color as the part of the image you are trying to extract it can be painful…
The crispest selections are made with the pen tool and then converting the pen path to a vector mask Layer>Vector Mask>Current Path.
Using the pen is no more time consuming, once you get the hang of bezier curves than the extract tool is. What’s cool about a vector mask is that you can go back and reposition the mask at any time as long as the file is unflattened.
Another Tip…get a Wacom Tablet, the stylus and pressure sensitivity help no matter what you are doing, masking, creating selections, editing ,etc.
To create your shadow, use the path you have created with the pen, change it to a selection in the paths palette,and create a new layer. Fill the selection on the new layer with black. Use the free transform tool to manipulate the new layer into position under the car, then use the Gaussian blur filter and the opacity sliders on the layer palette to soften the shadow.
If you make a closed Path it can be changed to a selection by hitting Ctrl-Enter. Then Ctrl-J will lift the selected pixels to their own layer.
