Basic Reflection Effect
In this tutorial we will talk about a Photoshop Effect used in many situations, an effect that is simple – in the way I present it-, one that can be applied on pictures and web graphics or anything else. The procedure is simple and well explained as you will see, containing a lot of images to make all the steps clear.
First of all, for this Photoshop Tutorial we will need a graphic object like a picture, logo, button or something similar. Try not to pick up a to large image. I used the BMW logo. Here is my source gif if you want to use it:
This Photoshop Effect has 3 steps
1) Getting the object into the editing document
2) Setting up the duplicate object that we will use for the reflection effect
3) Adding the fade-out effect using the Mask Layer and Gradient Tools.
Let’s get started!
1) Importing the graphic. You might want to skip this step if you know how to get the graphic object in the large document where you will work.
· Create a new Photoshop Document. The size dose not matter.
· Open the document containing the image/web button/etc that you want to play with.
· Right-click on the layer containing the item that you want, and select duplicate. For example, I used a jpg called source.jpg to get my logo out. I opened the source.jpg after I crated the big document, duplicated it setting the destination to the big document (In my case it’s Untitled-1.psd).
The duplication dialog box with the destination document set to the new document:
· Rename the layer to something like “object” just to stay organized, in case you didn’t do that in the step above. I erased the white borders that my object had, but that’s not part of this tutorial.
The background was set to a natural gray (optional).
2) Making the reflection layer. Again, we will use the Photoshop Duplication technique to solve this problem. So:
· Duplicate the “object’ layer (Shortcut by default is ctrl/command + j). The resulting layer contains a twin object of the source one. The image should look the same.
We want to make this look upside down.
· Press ctrl/command + t and right click the object, then select Flip Vertical. Now you should have the upside-down version.
· Move the duplicate down by holding ctrl/command and moving the mouse.
3) The fade effect. Here comes the hard part. Pay close attention now! We need to make this “reflection” layer look like it’s fading. To do this we need to use a mask and the gradient tool.
· Add a Layer Mask on the duplicated layer.
· Pick-up the gradient tool and make sure you use the default colors (black and white), set it to radial fill and fill it in the way shown in the figure below. This is the main trick! If you can’t get it from the first time, play with the gradient tool a bit.
My final outcome is this:
I’d like to see your outcome, so feel free to email me with it. I will post some here if you want!
Enjoy!
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Cya next time for a new Photoshop Tutorial!
Alex said... 8 September 2008 22:51
Hi, my name is alex. I am learning the photoshop, and i like it very well. I just found your blog, when i searched for extreme tutorials, and i realy like it. I want to try all your tutorials already posted in the blog, and i realy want you to put oders.
Maybe i have mistakes in what i wrote, thats because i am hungarian.
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