This tutorial is designed for Photoshop
The method can probably be applied to other Applications.
We are going to be making a reflection on an object, like the one shown above; its all easy and simple and should be easy to remember and re-produce.
The original image is bellow:
1. Create a new document (CTRL+New or File->New) and set the dimensions (Width and Height) to 500x500.
2. Open the original image, and drag it onto the new document you have created (It might not allow you, if it does not, go to Image->Mode->RGB Color and then drag&drop onto the new document); you should have something like I have bellow:
3. Select the layer you have the orignal.gif image on, apply a drop shadow with the blending options/layer style editor by clicking on the
and selecting 'Drop Shadow...'
4. You can follow my settings to the Drop Shadow settings, or play around and apply your own; below are the settings I used:
5. Duplicate your layer (Layer->Duplicate) and name it 'Reflection' if you want to, then put the copied layer or the 'Reflection' layer under the original image. Remove the 'Drop Shadow' layer effect:
6. Add a mask to your 'Reflection' layer by selecting
button on your layers window, it should look something like the following:
7. Flip the 'Reflection' layer vertically (Edit->Transform->Flip Vertically).
8. Drag the 'Reflection' layer just under your original layer holding shift down (to make it easy), you should have something like the following:
9. Select the Gradient Tool or just press 'G' then select and hold on the arrow and select 'Gradient', have the mask selected on the 'Reflection' layer, then hold shift and using the Gradient Tool drag to the height of the 'Reflection' layer like the following:
10. You should have something like the following:
11. Select the 'Reflection' layer and set its Opacity to 30% (or to what you want; play around with it untill you are satisfied), you should have the following:
You're Done!
You should have something like this:
You can download the .psd file here (learning rights only).
