Adobe® Photoshop® CS2 Studio Techniques

Limiting Shadows

I use Clipping Masks all the time when I'm creating shadows. Let's say you have a lizard, and underneath the lizard is a leaf, and you want the lizard to cast a shadow on the leaf. Once you create a layer that contains a shadow, all you need to do is create a Clipping Mask (make sure the leaf layer is directly below it), and then the shadow will show up only where the leaf is (Figures 15.4 to 15.6).

Figure 15.4. Original image. (©2005 iStockphoto.com/Elerium/jamesbenet)

Figure 15.5. Creating a Clipping Mask between the shadow and the leaf layer.

Figure 15.6. Layers palette view.

If you've created your shadow using a Layer ...