Reflection tutorial

[Murdernickle]

Since someone asked about this, i figured everyone can benefit from it if I just make a tutorial.

So you want to make a nifty little reflection on an image but you have no idea how to do it? Well lucky for you that you joined photoshopforce.com....and even luckier for you, I did too Onay. So the first thing is, you want to find and open whatever the thing is that you want to reflect. It could be text, an image, whatever. I'm going to use the new, black iPod video.



Okay, lets get into it. The first thing you want to do is obviously cut out your image. you can use the magic wand, lasso, whatever so long as you get your item on a separate layer than the background. Next, duplicate the layer that your image is on. to do that, simply right click on the layer name and choose "Duplicate layer". Your layers palette should now look like this.



Next, select the top layer and go to Edit>Transform>Flip Vertical.



Then, in the layers palette, drag the top layer below the middle layer to put it under. Use the move tool to move that layer down until the bottoms of the layers about line up as shown in the image.



Next, in the layers palette, click the "add layer mask" button on the bottom. Make sure to select the layer mask by clicking on it.



Now, choose the gradiant tool from the tool bar.



Now press D to make the foreground color black and the background color white. Drag the gradiant as shown below from the bottom to top.



You should end up with something that looks like this.



Now, select the layer and lower the opacity until whatever you have looks about right given the glossiness of the surface that you want to create. I used 36%



Next thing, go into the Filter>Blur menu and choose Gaussian Blur. change the blur until it looks good to you. It should be a very small amount to creat a slightly diffuse reflective surface. I chose 0.8.



And at that point you're done. I played with it a bit more and made a quick little ad displaying what you could do with a reflection.



Good luck and if there's anything you need clarity on just let me know. Otherwise get crackin!

[DEVs]

Great tutorial thx for the submission

[Nick]

Nice tutorial, Murdernickle! Very simple but handy effect here. Thanks for adding!

[Jeff]

Yes, great job on this one -- thank you very much for posting it

[Flea]

sweet tutorial man

[Murdernickle]

Thanks guys! It's a real simple effect but an effective one I find

[hazeaccord]

good tutorial, already know how to do this, but its still great for others. Nice Job!

[Jeff]

[DewDrop]

[DEVs]

Very nice DewDrop

[DewDrop]

[Murdernickle]

Ya really, half the stuff I make I'll never use for anything, I just do it for the fun.

Cool result there dewdrop.