How to Create Car Reflection in Photoshop

The Photoshop car reflection effect or shiny table can be found on numerous professional looking websites and advertisements.

This effect is widespread among Photoshop gurus and digital artists who use it to alter and make text and objects appear to be sitting on a shiny, reflective table.

What is Car Reflection

Transforming an image of a car by applying reflective effects in Photoshop to create a new image whereby the car appears to naturally seat on a reflective or polished surface with its mirrored image on the surface known as car reflection. Image mirrors like landscapes, clouds and, natural textures and patterns may be used.

Importance of Car Reflection to Car
Dealers

• Car reflection is prevalent among car dealers due to various advantages it provides to them. They include:
• It elevates car images from amateur to professional.
• Due to efforts made through photography and in the post-production process of their products, customers feel more comfortable investing their money and time with them.
• It’s an inexpensive way of adding quality to images.
• It enables them to enhance images of their products without creating a distraction.
• Due to the visually attractive and appealing look that car reflection presents to their products, it gives them an edge over their competitors.

Car Reflection Photoshop Tutorial

To create a
reflection in Photoshop on any image; below is a step by step guide that you
will use to arrive at this using Adobe Photoshop CS6.

Step 1: Set up your workspace. Go to
Window>>Work Space>> Photography-opens all tools and windows you
will need. Open and save (under a new name) the image you want to include
reflections on. Make your preferred general contrast, lighting and colour
adjustments. When finished, on the Background layer’s options, select-Flatten
Image.

Step 2: On the Background’s options, select-Duplicate Layer. Name the new layer-Cut Out. Now hit W to activate Quick Selection Tool. This is the stage where you select the photo section to add a reflection to. click around the inside of the region you had in mind. Automatically Photoshop will detect similar parts in the image. Choose on the parts you want to add to the selection. If you mistakenly highlighted on some parts, Alt-click inside those areas to remove them from the collection.

Step 3: Once you are satisfied with your
selection, hold a combination of Crtl+Shift+I which inverts the
selection-selects everything outside your selection. Hit Delete on your
keyboard. To hide the little eye image that appears next to the Background
layer, click on it.

Step 4: Move to the background layer then,
create a new layer between Cut Out layer and Background layer by pressing
Ctrl+Shift+N- name it Black Fill. Make White the background colour and Black
the foreground colour. Now hit G which activates the Gradient /
Paint&Bucket Tool then, hit on its image and confirm that the Paint Tool is
checked. Now hold a combination of Ctrl+D to remove the selection, and then
click anywhere for the Black fill layer to be filled with Black.

Step 5: Activate the Move Tool by pressing
V, select on the Cut Out layer, then move the photo part to the top-half
section of your document-to provide more space for you to create a reflection.

Step 6: Right-click on the Cut Out layer
then select Duplicate Layer-name it Reflection. To Flip the image select
Edit,>>Transform>>Flip Vertical. Activate the Move action by
pressing V then tap the down-arrow key till the bottoms of the flipped and
original images barely touch each other. Alternatively, you can drag while
holding the Shift key down, to move the image downwards in a straight line. In
case there is not enough space to fit the pictures, you can drag the original
un-flipped image up, or by going to Images>>Canvas Size-to increase the
document size.

Step 7: Go to the Layers box, and at the
bottom, you will see several icons, hit on the one that says Add Layer Mask.
Activate the PaintTool by pressing G then Right-click on its image then select
the Gradient Tool. Beginning at the original image’s bottom, hold down the
Shift key (to make a straight line) then, click and drag downwards past the
flipped image’s bottom. This will make the flipped picture to fade gradually.
Lower the Reflection layer’s Opacity to 50%.

Step 8: Once you are satisfied with your
reflection, select on the Cut Out layer then hold the Shift key and then select
the Reflection layer to pick them both simultaneously. At the bottom of the
Layers box, select Link Layers. This feature links the two layers in that
moving one, moves the other with it.

Information provided in this tutorial will enable you to add reflections into anything you want which may include photographs, buttons, icons and texts. Adding reflection to images is an astonishing way to give your designs a professional and polished look.