Start with the 16 million color graphic that you want the reflection on. This one was 256x400. (I recomend opening the original, making several copies, then close the original. I only work off of copies, too many chances to lose the original data!)
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Start with the 16 million color graphic that you want the reflection on. This one was 256x400. (I recomend opening the original, making several copies, then close the original. I only work off of copies, too many chances to lose the original data!) |
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Time for a decision, I've decided to reflect in the entire glassed-in area of the building, your object will of course vary. One thing to consider is that this method will darken the surface that is reflecting so the best results are obtained when you completely cover the reflecting surface. Hopefully this will become clear as we proceed. |
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Now, we need to extract the reflecting surface. There's several ways to
do this but in this case the following method seems to work best.
Pick a foreground color that is very different from any color in the image,
in this case red. Outline the reflecting surface with
a 1 pixel wide line.
Your graphic should look like this: |
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Using the "Magic Wand" with "Tolerance" set to about 100 and "Feather" at 0,
select the reflecting surface. The deal here is, hold down the "Shift" key while you
click in the reflecting area. This adds to the selection as you pick the areas not yet selected.
If the selection escapes, simply hit the "undo" button and reduce the tolerance until
the total selection is inside the "red" line, or use the other selection tools(still
holding down the "Shift" button) to add to the selection. Work it until the entire area
inside the
"red" lines is selected.
Your graphic should look like this: Now, goto "Selections"> "Modify"> "Feather" set it to 1. Goto "Selections">"Save" and save. In this case the name is reflection.sel. Delete this working copy. |
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Open a copy of the original graphic and goto "Selections">"Load" and
load the reflection.sel into it. Since the next step will darken the final
picture goto "Colors">"Adjust">"Brightness/Contrast" and boost brightness
by about 10 and contrast about 10.
Your graphic should look like this: |
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Now, open the the graphic that is to be reflected. This is where you'll decide a few things, how much to reflect, where to place the image, and stuff like that. I'll start by going to "Image">"Resample"> making the height equal to the height of the original and maintaining the "aspect ratio". The important thing to remember is that the selection you saved will be used to "cut-out" the reflected image, so the image needs to be adjusted so that the part you want reflected is in the selection. |
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Goto "Selections">"Load" and load the reflection.sel into it.
Now, "Selections">"Modify">"Overall Opacity" set to about 25%. Copy
into clipboard.
Your graphic should look like this: |
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Make the original active and paste the girl into it. Your graphic should look like this: |
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Here's another example where some work on the reflected image
needed more adjusting. |
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As you can see, the reflected image was rotated and moved (using "Add Borders")
to align the image to the selection. |