One of the ways of transforming a flat image into an interesting one is adding reflections.
And today we're going to learn an extremely simple way to do the same.
Now, there are dozens of ways to do the exact same thing in Photoshop.
This is just one of them.
All we need is a fun Blend Mode and a couple filters.
That's it.
So without any further ado, let's get started.
Back in the magical world of Photoshop, and if you want to go ahead download this photo
or any of the photos shown in the video, check the links in the description.
So here we have our subject walking on a plain beach.
No nothing, no interesting things, no clouds.
How do we make it interesting?
Simple.
Just bring in some clouds and then we will add some reflections.
So I'm going to open up my Finder or Explorer, and I'm going to drag this guy and drop it
over the image.
Don't drop it here.
It will open as another document.
Drop it over the canvas.
Now, once you do that, you can hit the Enter key, and then simply change the Blend Mode
from Normal to Multiply.
You can adjust the position, so on and so forth.
Now, I'm just going to adjust the horizon line.
So, when I adjust it like this, it seems to be perfect.
Now, before creating any masks, I would highly recommend that you make another copy of the
Sky layer.
Why is that?
To create reflections.
So with the Sky layer selected, press Ctrl or Command+ J. All right.
Now you can turn this off.
We don't need this at this moment.
Now just select the Sky layer and with the help of the Gradient tool, just select the
Gradient tool and make sure it's Black to White.
Alright.
You can always press D to get the default colours in the swatches and then select the
first one.
It's always foreground to the background.
Hit OK.
Just make sure it's Black to White.
That's pretty much it.
Now let's create the Mask.
Click on the Mask button.
It has a mask and then just click and drag.
Now, the opposite is happening.
So we need to click and drag from the other side.
So, just do that and we are good.
Now to draw a straight line, you can hold the Shift key, and then click and drag it
up.
So, we have a soft mask going on right here and it's looking pretty good.
Now, it's time for us to create the reflection.
So just turn on this one.
And let's name this Reflection.
Okay.
Now you can turn this off if it's confusing you.
And Ctrl or Command + T, right click on it.
And as you have guessed it right, we need to flip it vertically.
For beginners, flipping it vertically does this.. and flipping it horizontally does this.
Makes sense?
I hope that does.
So let's flip it vertical.
And now we need to bring it down just like that.
It looks right.
Now, once you're happy with this, you can always go ahead and stretch it if you want
to.
So, I'm just gonna bring in at the horizon line and then let's stretch it a little bit.
Let's take it a little more up.
Let's stretch it even more.
This is fine.
Even the reflections are always a little stretched, right?
So, hit Enter or Return.
Now we need to do just the opposite.
We need to create the Mask.
And now with the help of the Gradient, just click and drag a straight line.
There you go.
That's looking nice.
Now, here is a line we do not want.
There you go.
That's even better.
Now, let's take it a little up.
Ctrl or Command + T. We're going to take it a little up and let's stretch it a little
bit like that, take it a little up.
There you go.
That looks wonderful.
Now let's turn on the Sky.
And we are pretty much good to go.
No, I'm just kidding.
We need to apply some effects here to make the reflection look more convincing.
So first of all, have a look at the reflection.
Now, in real world situations, the reflections are a little darker than the sky and to make
it darker we can add a Curves Adjustment layer, we can also do levels.
Whatever is your favourite.
Do not focus too much on the steps.
Just focus on the approach.
So click on the Adjustment layer icon and then choose Curves.
Let's make the highlights a little darker.
So, first of all, let's move to the image right here.
And we're going to take it a little down.
But it's affecting the whole image.
So how do we limit the curves just to the reflection?
By creating a Clipping Mask.
So simply click on this button.
It creates a Clipping Mask.
Have a look at the arrow.
It means that it's only affecting the reflection.
No matter what you do, it's only going to affect that reflection.
So let's make it a little darker.
Not so much.
And let's make the shadows darker as well to add some contrast to it.
There you go.
Have a look.
Here's the before, here's the after.
It's looking even more convincing.
Now, apart from being a little darker, the reflection also has a little bit of blur.
So first of all, let's start with Motion Blur because it has a motion blur from top to bottom
in 90 degrees.
So with the Reflection selected.. now keep in mind, this is a Smart Object.
If it's not a smart object for you, you can always go to Filter and then click on Convert
for Smart Filters, so that is a smart object that allows you to change the values of blur
later.
So go to Filter - Blur, and then Motion Blur.
Now, we need to apply a Motion Blur in 90 degrees.
You can, you know, increase it even more if you want to.
You can go as high as 200 or something to create a dreamy look.
You are the artist.
The number is for you to choose.
There are no boundaries, no limits, no rules or restrictions.
Just choose whatever you like, right.
For this example, if you want to keep it realistic, you don't have to keep it realistic, but if
you want to, you can just compare it with the blur of this reflection.
All right, so let's keep it at around 50.
That's fine for this example.
And then just hit OK.
That's it.
Now apart from it, as I can see, the blur is very sharp, so we need to give an overall
blur.
So, let's apply Gaussian Blur to it.
So, go to Filter - Blur, and then Gaussian Blur.
Now keep in mind, you can always change the values later.
Not so much.
Just a touch.
Now let's zoom in.
Just make sure that the blur is not very sharp.
If I keep it at 0.1, look at the blur.
It's a little sharp, so we can keep it at 3.8 or a 4.0.
That's fine.
Zoom out.
That's fine.
Now along with the blur, there's a little bit of waves and ripples in here.
So how do we add that?
Not a lot of waves.
Not waves all over the place, but a little bit here and there.
We can do that as well.
Now, if you want to add the waves just a little bit here and there, you need to use the Smart
Filter Mask.
Have a look at this.
The Smart Filter also comes with a mask.
But the problem is, if you apply another wave filter here, the mask will also prevent Motion
Blur and Gaussian Blur effects.
So we need to again convert this into a Smart Object.
So I click on it again and choose Convert to Smart Object, again.
Those filters are now assimilated or applied into this, but you can still access it.
If you want to change the numbers of Gaussian Blur or Motion Blur, just double click on
the thumbnail, another document will show up, and here you can change the values and
press Ctrl or Command + S to save it.
And this will update.
The original document will update.
Now, let's apply some Waves.
Go to Filter - Distort, and here you will find Wave.
Now, I can go on and on in to explaining how this works.
But we're going to go a little fast this time.
The number of Generators determine how random it's going to be.. how many wave Generators
are there in your image.
So, the more the number of Generators, the more random the waves are going to be.
Now, the Wavelength determines the size.
So, if I increase the Wavelength, look at the size.
The size of the waves increase.
Now, let's increase the Amplitude so that you can understand.
So, Wavelength determines the size of the wave.
Look, huge, right?
Amplitude determines the intensity or the amplitude of the wave.
So, if there's a wave like this, if you increase the Amplitude, the peaks and the valleys will
increase.
Now, Scale, have a look if you increase it, it's similar to Amplitude.
Now, we don't want so much of it.
All we need to do, we need to have Generators.
Somewhere around 200 is fine for this example.
Just play with this.
Wavelength, we don't want it to be so big.
So, the minimum Wavelength can be 1, and the maximum can be somewhere around 10 or something.
That's fine.
Now Amplitude, minimum can be 1, maximum can be somewhere around 10 or 15.
That's fine.
Now Scaling is important.
Horizontal and Vertical.
We only want horizontal scaling.
We don't want vertical scaling because the waves are going to be horizontal.
So increase the Horizontal.
There you go.
Look here, right here.
Not so much.
Now, what you can do actually, you can always randomise it from here and hit OK.
Have a look at this.
Have a look at the waves.
I think the Amplitude is a little too much.
So, I'm just going to double click on the Wave and let's decrease the Amplitude to..
from 14 to let's go for a 6 and hit OK.
See, now it's looking more realistic.
You can go even lower if you want to.
Let's go to Wave and let's randomise it a couple more times, and hit OK.
The pattern will be a little different.
So you can always double click on the Wave and randomise it and hit OK.
If you want to apply it in certain areas, all you need to do is to select the Smart
Filter Mask, press Ctrl or Command + I to invert it.
Now the wave has gone from all of these areas.
I can take the Brush, make sure the foreground colour is white, press X to toggle between
the foreground and the background and take a Soft Brush and just dab in certain areas
for the waves.. like I want a little bit there, a little bit here, maybe a little bit here.
Not all over the place.
A little bit over there.
A little bit here.
Probably, not so much.
Let's go for a little lower from the side.
That's fine.
A little bit wave here and there makes it totally realistic.
Here's before Wave, here's after Wave.
A little bit wave here and there.
And there you go.
That's all we got to do.
Now, sometimes the skies are so complicated and so detailed and have so many clouds that
it starts to affect the subject.
And it begins to add some details to the subject as well.
How do we prevent that?
All we have to do is to go to the Mask of the Sky, or if the reflection is disturbing,
go to the Mask of the reflection, or create a Mask in this case, and then just select
the Mask and take the Brush and simply erase it from that of the subject.
So make sure the foreground colour is black, and then take it away from the subject.
And if you don't want to disturb this Gradient Mask right here, what you can also do is you
can put it inside a group.
So with this layer selected, press Ctrl or Command + G to put it inside a group and create
a Mask for that group.
That way now you have two Masks.
Now, in that Mask, you can take the Brush, black as the foreground colour, and then just
paint on the subject or the areas where it is disturbing the subject.
In this case, the sky was a little plain and it's not disturbing a lot.
It's pretty fine.
So, let me show you before and after the Mask.
This is before the Mask, this is after the Mask.
Not much of a difference.
But if the sky was lot more detailed and colourful, was disturbing the subject, you can use this
technique.
You can also use the Blur technique to prevent it as well.
More about the Blur technique in this video.
Now if you wish, you can also top it off with some effects or filters.
For this example, let's create a simple Colour Lookup Adjustment layer.
So make sure you select the topmost layer so that you create it at the top and then
click on the Adjustment layer icon and then choose Colour Lookup.
You can choose any one you like.
For this example, let's choose my favourite, Crisp_Warm.
And now I think it's too much.
Let's decrease the Opacity and let's keep it somewhere around 40%.
And there you go.
It's done.
As an additional step to make the reflection even more realistic, we can use Blend If,
right, to add some shine to it.
In other words, why not remove the reflection from the bright areas?
So to do that, double click on the right hand side of the Reflection layer.
This opens up the Layer Styles dialogue box.
Now, inside of that, in the Blend If section, just simply take away the bright areas of
the underlying layer, or the layers which are beneath it, from this layer, which means
from the Reflection layer.
So, we need to take the slider, the right slider of the underlying layer from right
to left.
As you can see, bright areas are going away, but it's very harsh, right.
So hold the Alt or Option and click on the slider to break it apart and then adjust it
accordingly.
I'm probably gonna go a little bit, not too much, maybe just a touch, just like that.
And once you're satisfied with the values, just hit OK.
Now have a look.
Before and after applying Blend If.
So, here's the before, here's the after.
Just that Blend If makes so much of a difference.
So, that's how, my friends, we can transform a flat, boring image into an interesting one
by simply adding reflections.
In this example we used Multiply Blend Mode to add the sky and then the reflection.
And after that, we simply added some blurs.
First of all the Motion Blur in 90 degrees and then the Gaussian Blur to make it look
more natural by applying an overall blur.
And after that, we added some waves in certain areas.
Not all over the place.
And keep in mind always, the reflection is a little bit darker than the sky.
So you can use Curves or Levels to make it a little darker.
And at the end, you can top it off with some effects and filters.
And that's pretty much it.
I hope this video helped you and if it did, make sure to give us a like and also don't
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Thank you for watching.
I'll see you guys in my next one.
Till then, stay tuned and make sure that you keep creating.