Creating Object Reflection

In this tutorial you will see how to create the reflection of the object and the surface on which it is reflected.

1. Open an image with the object and copy the background layer. I chose a photo of this green pimpled ball.

2. Make a selection of the object and delete the background.

3. Now we should add some space for the reflection. Go to Image>Canvas size and putting the arrow into the top middle square double the height of the image. I also made it wider.

4. Copy the layer with the cutout image and put it underneaf.

5. Staying in that layer go to Edit>Transform>Flip vertical.

6. Holding Shift key move the future reflection down. It should slightly overlap with the object.

7. Add layer mask to the Reflection layer.

8. Choose Gradient tool with Black to White and Reverse settings. Holding Shift make a line from the bottom of the reflection to its top.

Click to enlarge

9. Go to Blur>Gaussian blur and set it to about 4 points.

10. Reduce the reflection layer transparency.

11. At this point we need to create the surface. Create a new layer underneaf the reflection layer.

12. Fill it with some color, preferably light. I used white.

13. Now we are creating the shadow. Create a new layer underneaf the top layer. Staying in the new layer Ctrl click the layer with the ball to select our object. Go to Edit>Fill and fill the selection with black.

14. Use Edit>Free transform and transform the future shadow to make it look flat.

15. Go to Blur>Gaussian blur and set it to about 40.

16. Reduce the layer transparency.

The result looked as follows:

17. Here's the same with blue color. To make the surface glossy I also used Filters>Render>Lens Flare:

You can add as a surface some texture instead. I used the texture of glass tiles.

18. Open the image with the texture. Ctrl click it and move the selection to the document with the ball. Put the layer with the selection underneaf the reflection layer.

19. We should adjust the texture to our needs. I had to rotate mine 90 degrees counterclockwise to keep the lighter area on the left (the light falls on the ball from the left) and usde free transform to add perspective. This operation also changed the form of the tiles but that was OK.

20. For the reflection layer I changed blending mode to Multiply and increased the layer opacity level.

21. I also used Burn tool with 20% exposure value and very soft large brush on the right side of the ball where the shadow is falling the the tiles are much darker.

Here's the result again: