How to Create Real Reflections

In professional product photography, you’ll often see a reflection appear below the product, and while you can add these reflections after the fact in Photoshop, it’s easier to just have real reflections (plus, depending on the angle of the product, the job of creating fake reflections in Photoshop can range anywhere from quick and easy to a real pain in the %*$#, so you’re better off doing it right up front). The easy way to get those reflections is to shoot your product on some plexiglass (either clear or white frosted). Just put a rectangular sheet of plexi right over your background (you can pick up these small sheets of plexiglass at your local Home Depot or Lowe’s for around $15) and it does the rest. Plus, plexiglass is handy for all sorts of other stuff (you’ll see it used again in a couple of pages, and another in Chapter 10. To see a production setup using plexiglass, go to page 93).

Faking Reflections in Adobe Photoshop If you need to fake a reflection, here’s how it’s done: Make a selection around your product, then press Command-J (PC: Ctrl-J) to put that product up on its own separate layer. Go under the Edit menu, under Transform, and choose Flip Vertical. This turns your product upside down. Now press-and-hold the Shift key, and drag your product straight downward until the two “bottoms” touch, then in the Layers panel, lower the opacity of this layer to around 20%. That’s it!