Process Shadows

In some cases it can happen that shadows continue for way to long until the edge of the picture. Especially if you need the shadows to be uniform on many images (i.e. you would need a way to consistently cut the shadow for all images).

To easily change this without having to change the light and the camera, there is a Post Processing option called Process Shadows.

With it you can control how quickly the shadows disappear as they approach the edge of the image. Options:

  • Shadow Inner: Mostly you will not need this option, but this option pulls away shadows from the object. Unless you need something specific (e.g. increase the strength of the shadow that extends under the product) please skip this option. Range: 0 to 1. Default: 0.

  • Shadow Outer: This controls how far from the object the shadow disappears. The higher the value the more it tries to suppress the shadows that are not directly under the product. Range: 0 to 1. Default: 0.

  • Shadow Falloff: This controls the falloff of the shadow (how quickly, how soft the shadow gets). Range: 0 to 1. Default: 1.

Take for example the following image:

When turning on the option we can see already that with the default values we see that much of the shadow disappears around the product:

If we increase the Shadow Outer to 1 it will not let any shadow be casted away from the product (other than the shadow right under the product):

If we decrease the Falloff to 0 it will make the shadows much softer much quicker away from the product. So you see the bit stronger shadow right under the product but going away the shadow gets much softer.

If you take a look at the last image (Falloff 0) we might want to make the shadow extend a bit more under the product and this is where Shadow Inner comes in. Increasing a value a bit, we can see that the shadow extends but the Falloff doesn't change.

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