Image Retouching 101: Enhancing Your Images With The Reflection Tool
Reflections can add depth and realism to any photo. Creating highlights may seem difficult at first, but once you learn how to do it step by step, you’ll know how easy it really is. Adding reflections is the best way to enhance any boring photo and give it new life. In less than 15 minutes, you’ll be up and running with the basics of the Reflection Tool by following the steps below.
Cut, Copy, Paste
The first thing we would do is crop the image you want to use and then copy it to a new layer. There are 2 easy ways to copy your photo. One is to use the Lasso tool (this tool is useful for complex images); another is using the “marquee tool”. The Marquee tool is particularly useful for images that are simple like the structure of a building. Pick the Marquee Tool and draw a box around the image. Right-click on the image and choose “layer via copy” to copy the selected image to the current layer.
Only do this step once. The selected image will be on top of the original photo. To check, you can drag the copied image down to see the original.
flip image
While staying on the new layer, click the “Edit” button and from there choose “Transform” and “Flip Vertical” to flip the copied image upside down. It may seem strange, but it would actually serve as a reflection of the original. Move the image upside down below the actual image until the original image and the flipped image line up. To bridge the gap between the two, you can use the up and down buttons on the keyboard to adjust the image.
mixture
The reflections should not look like the original image and as such we would need to blend the inverted image. The color scheme is always set to normal by default, but you can change it to lighten or darken the inverted image. A graph is also displayed on the right side of your work area that you can move to adjust the color from dark to light and vice versa. You can play around and choose the best one that works for you. Remember to save your work progress to ensure that all your work is preserved. Saved images can be in .PDF, .BMP, or .JPEG format.
