Creating Shadows and Highlights

Hi, Ive got to grips with creating alphas and wrinkles etc the only problem im having now is getting the shadows and highlights of my clothing right. I am using the dodge and burn tools for creating wrinkles in my clothes as per the tutorial in second style and assumed that i could use the same tools for doing my shading and highlights. The problem is no matter what i do it just looks so unnatural, i just cant get it to look right even though i think i am placing the shading and highlights in the right areas. Can you give me any pointers on an effective way to acheive thi?

Devon, can you post a pic of one of your items on an avatar? It'll be easier to critique what you have and offer suggestions that way.

The way I personally like to do shading for clothing is to create duplicate layers. I use levels and hue/saturation adjustment layers linked to each individual layer to darken and slightly desaturate one layer to define the look of the fabric I want in shadow areas, and another and for how I want it to look where it's most brightly lit. I then use layer masks to control where those shadow and highlight layers are visible. The nice thing about doing it this way is that it's non-destructive. I can keep tweaking the layer masks and adjustment layers until I get something I'm happy with. At that point I'll duplicate the merged layers (without actually merging them) and use the dodge and burn tools to add a little extra variation.

Chip is the master and I am but a noob...but your post makes me wonder how you are selecting what spots to highlight or darken. If you want shading and highlights to look natural, it is essential to look at actual clothing or use pictures of actual clothing and observe where the lights and darks really fall. The foundation of realistic or natural looking graphics is OBSERVATION.

-Sylvia

Hi

I took a snapshot of my tshirt so you can see exactly what i mean. It seems I either do too much shadow or not enough I cant seem to find a happy medium, and it just looks so unnatural. Any advice would be appreciated. I looked a pics of ppl wearing stuff and i think i know kinda where to put the shading etc.

Looks like you're off to a great start, Devon. Here's just a couple of suggestions. The wrinkles should taper and fade out at the ends. Yours are the same width along their length and end with the rounded shape of the brush you were using. Try and think of the way the fold flattens out with the surrounding fabric at the ends. The shadows underneath the folds will lighten towards the end since there's less fold blocking the light. Folds should fade out at the ends unless they end at a fabric seam.

The other thing I notice is that your shirt fabric doesn't have any texture to speak of. The weave of the fabric will break up the light and create slight variations of color across the surface. You might want to add some very slight noise. It should be less noticeable in highlight and shadow areas.

I think addressing those two things will make it look a bit more realistic Looks good so far.

Another thought on your shirt now that I have looked at the picture. BTW, I really like the message on the shirt. When I first started customizing my avatar, it was fun to have great big breasts. Then I got into buying nice, well made clothes. There was a sweater that just didn't look so great on me and I realized it was the big breasts. The texture has to stretch more to go around them. I decided to make my breasts a bit smaller and I believe clothes in general look better on that shape. I think it is an extra challenge to design a shirt for a big breasted gal and have it look natural.