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Creating a glass pendant shine


M

mehend

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Hi all,

I could use some help. I am making these pendants, and I need to make a template photo so that I can drop in different pictures behind a layer that makes it look like a glass dome/cabochon is there. The "glass" layer is what I need to know how to make. I want all my photos to look the same, and to be able to just drop in the art underneath the layer that makes it look like it's a completed necklace.

Here's my original image. This is a real pendant I made with the glass cabochon in place. I don't want the shine to look like this because it looks kind of weird. I want it to look more pretty. ;)

Copper.jpg

Rather than letting perfect being the enemy of good enough, I made a really horrible and crude version that I've been using. I'm not digging it and would like to make one that looks professional. Here's what I've been using. I just used a black background and a black circle, offset over a white one to make the little "shiny" part and then I selected/cut out the white part with the magnetic lasso, placed it on my template photo, and changed the opacity so that the photo beneath shows through.

191.jpg

As a newbie, I know I'm not supposed to link to an outside website so I can't show you exactly what I mean. But if you're unsure, you can search for "digital collage sheets" on Etsy and many of them have mock ups of what a pendant would look like with their wares. Their "shine" looks better and they have shading that makes it look like there's a glass dome there.

Can you help me? I would definitely appreciate it.

- Em
 
What about something like this?

pendant1.jpg
pendant2.jpg

Wasn't happy leaving it the way it was, so I added reflection, shadow and color tweaks to make it look more 'realistic'.

pendant3.jpg

Thanks for the task! I haven't really done something like this before, so it was new to me and enjoyable :)
 
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There's a lot of variations to do this. Here's a quick one I'd often use....

On a new layer, use the ellipse marquee tool to create a selection of the pendant face. fill white.

Duplicate this layer and move slightly to right and down. (option) You may want to transform enlarge this duplicate by a few pixels.

ALT+click layer icon to select the shape.

Feather the selection... MENU>SELECT>FEATHER ... by 5 pixels (or your preference).

Make the original shape layer active. HIT DELETE. Play with layer modes and opacity - or make a duplicate of glint layer if need be.... I used SCREEN but may differ depending on face image or your preference.

Move the feathered hilite/glint to position.

pendantshine.jpg


Hope this starts you off..... but you can create variations of the above depending on your need or preference.



addendum .... take into account the reflecting main light source when doing this. Wrong glint position will throw the image off....
 
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I tried this effect two ways and it seemed to work better old school, I could not get it to look right using layer styles......but it's probably me. Here's how I did it.....

1. Create the pendant BG (template)..

P1.png

2. Create the pendant FG (template)..

P2.png

3. Align the two to where you like them and merge the two layers..

P3.png

4. Open a BG layer and place below pendant layer..

P4.png

5. We are going to create the shadow below the pendant. Create a new layer. Make a selection (cmd/cntl+click) of the pendant layer and go to SELECT > MODIFY > EXPAND and by 14 pixels. Fill with black.

P5.png

P6.png

6. Go to FILTER > BLUR > GAUSSIAN BLUR and blur to 18 pixels. Reduce opacity to 60%. Move this shadow layer below the pendant layer.

P7.png

P8.png

7. Select the pendant layer (cmd/cntrl+click) go to EDIT > STROKE > INSIDE > and choose 10 pixels with black. Gaussian blur to about 9.5, reduce opacity to about 70%.

P9.png
(sorry, missing the result image here)

8. I will show this next step on a black BG so you can see what I'm doing. You do it as follows (no Black BG)

Create a new layer. Make a selection of the pendant (cmd/cntrl+click). Go to SELECT > MODIFY > CONTRACT and input 14 pixels. You should have a marching ant circle smaller than your pendant.

P11.1.png

Select your ELLIPTICAL MARQUIS TOOL and click the third setting from the left.

P12.png

9. Create a new ellipse (circle) that overlaps the first so that only a small portion is showing. As soon as you release the mouse, it will clip the original selection.

P13.1.png

Fill with white.....it should look like this.

P13.png

Gaussian blur to your liking and reduce it's opacity to about 70%.

You should be done!
 
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I forgot to show the final product!!

pendant_02.1.jpg

Here's the Layer's Panel..

Screen Shot 2013-03-12 at 12.29.05 PM.png
 
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A lot of hardcores will tell you none of the current PS layer styles or some of the default filters will ever replace the old school ways of doing things.

In step 7.... try double the stroke pixel amount (20) . lower the opacity a bit more.

The background shadow - maybe transform smaller a tad bit and lower the opacity a bit more. Make it subtle.

This is optional - To complete the globe effect, give a slight refracted(?) /distorted look to the pendant image using spherize . This will heighten the effect of the globe dome illusion.
 
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mehend, I do recommend you try out the above techniques. It will help you to understand Photoshop tools better. But I have a favorite image I use to create shortcuts. Call it my globe effect cheat.

cabachon.PNG

I used the grey highlighted globe you see and transformed it to the size of the cabachon. I set it to overlay and duplicated it. You can see the blend modes and opacities in the layer names. The inner glow layer effect uses a light blue, selected from the blues in the jewel and moved closer to white. The effect is set to center, not edges. The choke is low and the size is comparatively high. In this example, choke 11, size 190.

Just an idea.
 
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Gorgeous! I will try it out tonight after the baby is asleep.

Thank you - and everyone who took the time to comment - so much! I truly appreciate it. Lots for me to go through here. I'll post my finished photo when I get there.
 
I've been playing around with all the instructions given here and here's what I've come up with:

new shine.jpg
I like it! I will play around with it a little more, but basically this is what I've been looking for and could not find.

If this particular image looks like it has too much shadow on it, that's because it came with its own shadow around the edges. I'll go for a more subtle look when I refine it. I have several like this and I'll have to compensate for it, but I had already merged the shadow with the "shine" on the right so I couldn't reduce the opacity of the shadow without killing the shine. So I'll leave them separate on my final template.

Thanks so much, all. I truly appreciate your help!

- Em
 
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