Create a Fake Render in Photoshop

Create a Fake Render in Photoshop by Majid Yeganegi

This tutorial is going to show you how to ‘fake’ a render using Photoshop. It is very simple and straight forward and I hope you find it very useful as it could be one quick option in your work process.

Let us start with two direct SU renders, one color+ shadows and the  next one “monochrome” style + shadows.

Color & Shadows -

Monochrome & Shadows -

Now go to Photoshop and open both renders from same scene, first we’ll enhance the color+shadow one. To do this  copy the base layer two times, and change the first copy mode to “Overlay” mode with an opacity of about 70% and do a guassian blur over it with an appropriate radius (here set at 6).

Do the same filter over the upper layer and change it’s blending mode to “multiply” with an opacity of about 30%, depending on your scene.

Next merge all layers using “Ctrl+Shift+E”

Next go to shadow render, and using “Ctrl+A” and “Ctrl+C”  copy it to clipboard. Go to previous image and using “Ctrl+V” to paste it. Change the blending mode to “Multiply” with an opacity of about 60% and do a Gaussian Blur filter  with appropriate radius (here 22) over it, this makes a fuzzy shadow effect.

Next we need a neat edge for our shadows and to do this we need a Layer Mask. Make a Layer Mask, “Alt+click” over the Mask and using “Ctrl+V” paste the shadow image over the Mask, and using “Ctrl+I”, inverse it. Also you may do a level enhance using “Alt+Ctrl+Shift+L.

The final step in Photoshop is to click on the (fuzzy) Shadow Layer to exit the Mask, as shown in the image below.

And the final completed Photoshop render.

Hope you enjoyed this little tutorial and may you find use for it in some of your future projects.

Majid