Photoshop Gurus Forum
Welcome to Photoshop Gurus forum. Register a free account today to become a member! It's completely free. Once signed in, you'll enjoy an ad-free experience and be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!
Reflection look
- Thread starter DaveD
- Start date
- Messages
- 23,632
- Likes
- 13,543
Hey Dave, I agree with Paul. Besides the spelling error, the actual reflection is more like a shadow because it's backlit. It lacks perspective and is a bit too sharp. The surface you've added does not call for any ripples, maybe if it was over water. It also needs to be a bit more diffuse whether it's a shadow or a reflection.
- Messages
- 23,632
- Likes
- 13,543
Here's a shadow. Notice that the shadow has perspective, it's just not straight down. (When I view your posted image, I see a shadow, thus the comments on perspective.)
Having said this, a true reflection has little to no perspective change, depending on the angle it's viewed from which may affect the depth of the reflection. Otherwise, it's only influenced by the reflective surface itself.
Having said this, a true reflection has little to no perspective change, depending on the angle it's viewed from which may affect the depth of the reflection. Otherwise, it's only influenced by the reflective surface itself.
ibclare
Queen Bee
- Messages
- 11,033
- Likes
- 4,638
I'm in agreement with the comments generally.
The reflected letters are too dark, looking as Sam said, like shadows. The reflection should start out darker and make a greater gradient than the one you made, and be less opaque overall as Sam's example shows. Your table has perspective and your reflection should probably follow that. Yes, use the perspective transform or distort. Experiment to see what works best for your technique.
As for the ripples, you might try to make a gradient map of the table, increasing levels to give it a higher contrast, then add distort>displace to the reflected letters. If you aren't familiar with displacement maps, we can guide you if you'd like to try it. Or find some tutorials which go into how and why, choose them depending on how much you really want to know. ;p
Lastly, I like the general look of it, but the composition is off. I realize that you might not have meant this as the finished product, but I'll give you my thoughts anyway.
The whole image should come down from the top of the background and probably be cropped at the sides. Leaving too much "white space" at the top or bottom of an image is a mistake many artists make when they focus on just the image and not the composition. If you aren't sure, sit back from it at a greater distance than you work, diminish its size, do full screen . . . stuff like that to see the whole better. It might help to study other commercial art and focus just on that part of the work.
The reflected letters are too dark, looking as Sam said, like shadows. The reflection should start out darker and make a greater gradient than the one you made, and be less opaque overall as Sam's example shows. Your table has perspective and your reflection should probably follow that. Yes, use the perspective transform or distort. Experiment to see what works best for your technique.
As for the ripples, you might try to make a gradient map of the table, increasing levels to give it a higher contrast, then add distort>displace to the reflected letters. If you aren't familiar with displacement maps, we can guide you if you'd like to try it. Or find some tutorials which go into how and why, choose them depending on how much you really want to know. ;p
Lastly, I like the general look of it, but the composition is off. I realize that you might not have meant this as the finished product, but I'll give you my thoughts anyway.
The whole image should come down from the top of the background and probably be cropped at the sides. Leaving too much "white space" at the top or bottom of an image is a mistake many artists make when they focus on just the image and not the composition. If you aren't sure, sit back from it at a greater distance than you work, diminish its size, do full screen . . . stuff like that to see the whole better. It might help to study other commercial art and focus just on that part of the work.