articles/Glamour/creatingreflections-page2

Creating Reflections in Adobe Photoshop - part 2 of 1 2 3 4

Published 01/02/2009

This all goes pretty quickly once you get the rhythm. You can create actions to speed up the work for you. I do my sales live, in Photoshop, on small resolution images. Doing something like this is like magic to the customer. In this client's viewing presentation, creating this quick mirror effect so thrilled her she shifted her planned 8x10 request to a 30x40 for her wall!

Another example of the mirror effect making a difference in a sale is image [Fig 4]. She was struggling to decide which image she would like in her 8x10 album collection, there is only the slightest difference between the two images. Inspired, I changed the background layer to layer one, doubled the canvas height with the expansion going below the layer one, made a marquee selection of the other family image with the bottom marquee line just below their hands, moved that over to the working image and flipped it. I then aligned them to mirror each other then fine tuned the mirror edge with a mask, nudging up the mirrored image until the reflection was right, finally cropping it.

They were relieved they did not have to decide which image to choose. Her husband asked which way they should hang it. 'You know,' I explained, 'we could frame it so it hangs both ways, you can flip it as your whims suit you'. They thought that was perfect, buying a custom frame for the 30x40 print.

This mirror stuff is great for sales; three minutes of inspirational Photoshop work takes you from one 8x10 to a merged 30x40 print, with custom digital work and specialty framing.

The mirror reflection on the white background can also be faded out, a technique that has become very popular with product images but works just as well with people, as in [Fig 5]. You will need an image with a white background which has space around the subject.

Do the initial steps to create your mirror image. Go to layer one (bottom layer) image; fill everything below the subject with white. The easy way to do this is to select your mirror image (Control/Command click on your layer icon). Go to Select>Transform Selection from the menu bar then pull the selection down until the whole area below the layer 1 subjects is selected. Activate the bottom layer, layer 1, and fill it with white.

Go back to the reflection layer, create a mask and switch your tool to the Gradient tool. At the top have your settings set to linear gradient (that is the small set of icons beside the gradient selection box at the top.) Select the gradient at 'foreground to background'.

• Creating Reflections in Adobe Photoshop page 1
  
• Creating Reflections in Adobe Photoshop page 2
  
• Creating Reflections in Adobe Photoshop page 3
  
• Creating Reflections in Adobe Photoshop page 4
  

There are 41 days to get ready for The Society of Photographers Convention and Trade Show at The Novotel London West, Hammersmith ...
which starts on Wednesday 15th January 2025