Sets the distance of the light source from the image. Larger values
move the light source closer, casting a more diffuse shadow, while
smaller settings move the light further away, yielding a sharper
shadow.
blur_size
defaults to 11 pixels.
Output is a always a PPM file, written to Standard Output.
pnmfile creates a number of temporary files as it executes. It creates them in the /tmp directory, with names of the form:
_PPMshadowpid-N.ppm
where pid is the process number of the ppmshadow process and N is a number identifying the file as described below. In normal operation, ppmshadow deletes temporary files as soon as it is done with them and leaves no debris around after it completes. To preserve the intermediate files for debugging, use the -k command line option.
N in the filename means:
Black pixels and pixels with the same color as the image background don't cast a shadow. If this causes unintentional "holes" in the shadow, fill the offending areas with a color which differs from black or the background by RGB values of 1, which will be imperceptible to the viewer. Since the comparison is exact, the modified areas will now cast shadows.
The background color of the source image (which is preserved in the output) is deemed to be the color of the pixel at the top left of the input image. If that pixel isn't part of the background, simply add a one-pixel border at the top of the image, generate the shadow image, then delete the border from it.
If something goes wrong along the way, the error messages from the various Netpbm programs ppmshadow calls will, in general, provide little or no clue as to where ppmshadow went astray. In this case, Specify the -k option and examine the intermediate results in the temporary files (which this option causes to be preserved). If you manually run the commands that ppmshadow runs on these files, you can figure out where the problem is. In problem cases where you want to manually tweak the image generation process along the way, you can keep the intermediate files with the -k option, modify them appropriately with an image editor, then recombine them with the steps used by the code in ppmshadow. See the ppmshadow.doc document for additional details and examples of the intermediate files.
Shadows are by default black, as cast by opaque material in the image occluding white light. Use the -t option to simulate translucent material, where the shadow takes on the colour of the object that casts it. If the contrast between the image and background is insufficient, the -t option may yield unattractive results which resemble simple blurring of the original image.
Because Netpbm used to have a maximum maxval of 255, which meant that the largest convolution kernel pnmconvol could use was 11 by 11, ppmshadow includes a horrid, CPU-time-burning kludge which, if a blur of greater than 11 is requested, performs an initial convolution with an 11×11 kernel, then calls pnmsmooth (which is actually a script that calls pnmconvol with a 3×3 kernel) as many times as the requested blur exceeds 11. It's ugly, but it gets the job done on those rare occasions where you need a blur greater than 11.
If you wish to generate an image at high resolution, then scale it to publication size with pnmscale in order to eliminate jagged edges by resampling, it's best to generate the shadow in the original high resolution image, prior to scaling it down in size. If you scale first and then add the shadow, you'll get an unsightly jagged stripe between the edge of material and its shadow, due to resampled pixels intermediate between the image and background obscuring the shadow.