Can anybody give me a good tutorial on making shadows?

I find it really difficult to make a nice shadow , anybody got any usefull tips...

Thanks

3 shadow tut's on my site,
http://www.bluetorials.com/free%20stuff/ps_tuts.html#shadow_layer

Thanks, I will check it out.

best tip I can give you, is start looking at shadows. For real... if you start paying attention to them, you´ll realize how they are when you try to do them at photoshop. If you´re outside, you´ll realize how sunlight casted shadows look like, when inside, look how more than one light in the room affects the shadow, how one light affect the shadow, and so on. And most important... when chopping, check where is the light in the picture, to know where the shadow has to be. My 2 cents. Hope they help ya.

Since your original post had (gasp!) a link to the entry in question - try to make your own reference shots - e.g. take some hat boxes outside in similar lighting conditions (cloudy I assume)

There are two types of shadows that come to mind: Cast shadow and Shading. I never like to use the Drop Shadow feature in photoshop. A Cast Shadow is your shadow friend when you go for a walk on a sunny day. I like shading in photoshop and here is the quick and dirty method that I use to add shadow/shading to an object to create depth:
I usually make a duplicate layer of the layer I'm working on in case I screw up. I select the polygonal lasso tool and select an area that I want to darken. Go to Select:Feather.... and choose a feathering value between 3 and 40.... it depends on the overall pixel dimension of the selection to how much feathering you want to do... you can undo it if it is too much or too little. Now go to Image/Adjustments/Levels to bring up the levels adjustment. The most basic slider is the bottom one, move the white marker to the left to darken your selected area. Sometimes you can adjust the 3-tone slider above to fine tune the look. Hit 'OK' and save... and you are ready to select your next area to apply shadows to.

Simplest way of thinking about shadowws is where isnt the light.

Also refracted light, reflected light, any specular, shadows casted on shaded objects, shaded objects, depth of feild your trying to create, any blur applied etc.

Thanks so much for al your tips, they are really usefull! I will try to use them in my next chops and let you know in the future which ones where particularly usefull.

Yes, that was a big gasp!! I didn't realize ..
good tip by the way.

For sure .
Like your quote by the way.

I don't like to use it either. It doesn't look very realistic...


Now I will become a bit of a shadowhunter when I will be outside

what is exactly a refracted light?

Reflection is when light bounces off and object. refracted light is when light passes through an object an is altered for example. glass, lenses, water, coloured liquids and so on (bending of the light waves)

How NOT to make a shadow.

we can see your excellent example on the above post, thanks marx man, you're the man!