Using Gimp to add drop shadows

[Treycee Melody]

I am a Gimp user and have been for a couple years.  I want to apply a drop shadow on an image that has a background of a brick wall.  I have viewed Photoshop tutorials that do the same and there should be a way that Gimp can do something similar.  I am aware I have to do layering, and I am not using text so that doesn't apply.  Attaching a photo to show what I want - drop shadow of avatar.  Can anyone help please?  Thanks!

[Ariel Vuissent]

http://www.tankedup-imaging.com/gimp/drop-shadow.html

And many more through a simple google search for "gimp drop shadow."

 

 

[Treycee Melody]

Thanks, but I have looked at TONS of videos and none of these apply.  I want the drop shadow to appear near the floor and still keep my wall.  

[Amaranthim Talon]

How about.. make a copy of the layer the avatar is on- assuming the brick wall is a separate layer? If it isnt then get rid of the brick wall on second layer, then desaturate remaining avatar so is b&w place behind first avatar and then offset it a little and fade out the layer?

You need a layer of wall and two of avatar, one desaturated and opacity turned down. Not trying it as I type but I think this wd work.

[Treycee Melody]

That is what I am trying to accomplish - separate the avatar from the brick wall, but every time I try, it fails.  I am sure I am doing something wrong, just not sure what!  Thanks!

 

[valerie Inshan]

You need to take first a snapshot of the brickwall ALONE: this will be your background layer.

On the picture of your avatar, do a cut out, select the path, inverse the selection and delete the background. That's layer 1.

Copy this layer and use the levels tool to make your avatar completely black. Then use "blur" or "gaussian blur" (I'm a Photoshop user, not a Gimp one but I assume it works more or less the same) to soften the edges. That's layer 2. It must come UNDER layer 1. Move it right or left until you get the appropriate result.

When you are satisfied with the drop shadow effect you are looking for, flatten image and save. :smileyhappy:

PS 1: keep a copy of the mutli layers version so you can come back and work on it again later if you need to.

PS 2: I don't know if you can do that in Gimp, but renaming the layers is a convenient feature to quickly identify multiple layers: in your case, that could be "background", "me" and "shadow".

[Treycee Melody]

Thanks to all for your help.  I am going to keep trying and I WILL prevail.  I don't give up easily :matte-motes-agape:

 

[valerie Inshan]

---

Treycee Melody wrote:

Thanks to all for your help.  I am going to keep trying and I WILL prevail.  I don't give up easily :matte-motes-agape:

 

---

Yay! Post the result when you're done! Have fun and good luck! :smileyhappy:

[Peggy Paperdoll]

Look under the "Filter" menu.  Light and shadow > Perspective. 

See if that doesn't help.  I've done something similar to what you are discribing (I think) and that's the filter I used.

[Innula Zenovka]

This shows you how to remove a single colour background from a picture with Gimp: 

 

[Electronic Mode]

easiest way is to play with gausiian blur

also you can make your pic with blue / greenscreen at first too, it makes it easyer to cut the avatar from the pic

nowdays shadow can be enabled with viewer. Even if it doesnt do it perfectly its much easyer to fix than making a new one. and it also helps you to see, where the shadows should come.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

That's a very good point, to my mind.    If your PC can handle it, using deferred rendering a viewer like Niran's that's designed for top quality graphics, and playing round with some of the graphics and Windlight settings, can achieve pretty spectacular results on its own, without any need for post-production work in Gimp.

 

[tielle Pexie]

nice replys and some great advice,for myself shadows in viewer makes my pc ouch, further to advice so far this is fairly straight forward,

in gimp  i would add new layer (transparent)

brush over the avatar with paint with new layer selected,(layers dock box)

fuzzy select tool 

filters, light and shadow,drop shadow

edit offsets to your aimed desire ((offset x (left to right) minus being left

y being up and down))

when happy, delete new layer keeping the drop shadow :matte-motes-smile: