I am not sure why as the shadows look nice and dark in the png especially if I duplicate the png layer, but when I overlay my poser people png onto a nice street background the shadows seemed to become very light and don't look right.
Love esther

Attached Link: http://www.photoshopessentials.com/photo-editing/layer-blend-modes/page-4.php

Estherau, Overlay does both multiply the dark areas which are darker than 50% gray and screens the light areas which are 50% lighter than gray. Read through this tutorial concerning the overlay blend mode and it may help you realize why this is happening to your png image.

 sorry I didn't actually mean overlay, I mean I just put the png on top of another layer.
Love esther
 

I have FluidMask3 - great program. When I bring in TIFs of dogs that need to be cut out (against white), I then save as PNG and bring into PS for compositing.

When I bring them in they are noticeably lighter than the original TIFs and I have no idea why. Same thing you're talking about - colors are more muted, the blacks are decidedly NOT black.

Solution?

Bring the PNG AND the original TIF (in YOUR case, render a TIF version) into the comp, Line them up (I put the PNG on top of the TIF layer and change the mode to Difference - use the Move Tool and your keyboard's Arrow keys to line them up - how you'll know they're perfectly lined up is it will become perfectly black - meaning there is no "difference"), then Ctrl-click (Cmd-click for Mac) on the thumbnail of the PNG layer to Load the Selection, then Ctrl-j the TIF Layer to duplicate ONLY the exact same pixels of the PNG Layer.

Did that make sense?

Hope this helps - good luck!

-Lew

 gosh that sounds very clever!  thanks!
Love esther
PS that trick with the arrow keys is a new one for me too.

Glad you like it!
Lemme know if it works for you. Good luck and we'll talk to ya soon-
-Lew ;-)

Being as I don’t work much with the ”png” format and I thought the original post was asking about the overlay mode I could not give an honest work around to the “png” overlay problem you’re experiencing. If I understand correctly, I would like to point out however that if you do as Thundering suggests with cutting out part of the image, that as long as the image size remains the same as the original and the cut out is not moved then you merely have to hold down the “shift” key  while moving the “png” file onto the “tiff” with the “move” tool it would center automatically as a layer and thus no need to use the nudge keys (arrows).

It never occurs to me to do that because what I mostly do is never lined up - from animals and kids moving all around to different model poses. When it comes to jewelry (locked down camera, just different lighting and reflections) I even just grab what I need and move it over - it'll still be off by a pixel to a handful of pixels, and be seated in a corner of the image when its done anyway.

I just drag all elements from various images that I need over to the comp and line them up/align them however they fall.

Good tidbit - forgot about it and for this it would go faster, yes.

-Lew

Um if I may suggest something, I had the same problem, what I normally do is (do not merge the png with the backround until AFTER this is finished)... I use the wand tool and click on the shadow (make sure it's in the shadow and not the backround), then I just use Brightness/Contrast to make it darker. I guess if the shadow were more complicated it may not work, but it always works for me, just DO NOT use the "color picker" tool, it will select EVERY part of the image that has the shade of grey that the shadow is, so besure to use the WAND TOOL.

Hope that helps.

 that sounds brilliant!