1. For this tutorial, I am going to teach you the basics of using the pen tool to make smooth selections on your image, and then fill it with a gradient tool so it looks like a reflection on a piece of glass. Create a new document in Photoshop (Mine is 500x150). The first step is to select your pen tool from your toolbox.
2. Now make an anchor point to the left of your document, near the top half of it (NOTE: An anchor point is any point that you make with the pen tool. To make an anchor point, simply left click anywhere on your document):
3. Now, make another anchor point near the middle of your image, but a little lower than the last.
4. Now, add a third anchor point in the upper left of your document. Your anchor points should now look like this:
5. Now, lets close your shape layer. To do this, click anchor point 1 (still with your pen tool), After you click, hold down your mouse and drag until black fills anything above the bottom line segments:
6. Now that we have the shape finished, we need to edit it by using the convert point tool. Select this from your main toolbar.
Now, click point tool and begin to drag outwards to the right or left. Your shape will begin to form curves around this point. Continue to drag the points until you have something that looks like this (when you first start dragging out, two more points should appear, drag these separately for different results):
7. Now your shape is finished! The rest is a walk in the park. Lets first start by creating a new layer and filling it with a dark colored gradient (in a real graphic, this would be the layer with your background, or image):
8. Now, create another new layer. In your layers panel, select the shape by holding Ctrl+Click Shape layer:
9. Now, select a new gradient that goes from white to transparent. This is usually a default in Photoshop (foreground color to transparent), just select white as your foreground color. Now hold shift, and drag the gradient down over the selection to about halfway over your document:
10. And your done! You now have your own glassy curve on your image!
Good luck!
