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Reflective Eyes in Photoshop


Aqua

Active Member
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Hi Members,

I just joined today.

I've been learning photoshop for awhile now and feel I know "most" things to get going. I am working on a project that involves placing another photo inside a picture of an "eye" to create a reflection.

I already have the layers set up and the "eye" is my background layer. I have done much research on locating tutorials on how to accomplish this. I did find a fairly good tutorial but it is not well written. I added the words "Step 4 and Step 5" to help narrow down my question. I am very close to completing this tutorial except I do not understand Steps 4 and 5.

I have the link for the tutorial available but this forum will not let me post links until I have 5 posts logged. Just google "Photoshop Tutorial: Reflective Eye" and it will show up as the first result in google. Or the full tutorial version is copied and pasted below:

Please google the actual tutorial as described above. My confusion is with Step 4 and 5. Please see below. Thank you for your time.

Photoshop Tutorial: Reflective Eye


Step 4

Now, we need to create a sphere about the size of the Iris. Don’t worry if your circle protrudes over the eyelid.
Create a new layer. On this new layer, fill the sphere selection with a
solid color and hide it. (We’re just going to use this layer to quickly
select our sphere later.)

Step 5

Option + Click
the circle layer and then select the layer with your scaled reflection
layer. You should have a sphere shape selected over the eyeball.

-END-
 

Hoogle

Guru
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create a circle using the eliptical tool on a new layer and fill with colour larger than the iris. This is not actually a sphere as a sphere is 3d and this is 2d. then select your reflection image in the layers pallette wmaking sure your eliptical selection is still active go to filter > distort > spherize so it gives a semi 3d effect
 

ibclare

Queen Bee
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Very confusing tutorial alright. Opt click the layer? Here's what I did following the steps as I understood they might kinda . . . hmmmm . . . well anyway:

reflection.PNG

The eye is BG of course (maybe not the best choice as it already has a bright reflection, but disregard that, lol)
The circle you create is to make a circular selection for the mask you will create on your object
The object is then transformed to scale and to perspective
Then the object is spherized
Now control click or command click the thumbnail of the circle layer to make the selection
Next select the object layer and apply the layer mask
Take a soft round brush at low opacity, increasing this as needed, and brush around the edges of your circular image to reduce some of the excess. You don't have to shape the object as your circle already did that.
Finally, change the blend mode of the object layer to hard light and reduce the opacity of this layer until you get the look you want. You might also, alternatively, try screen or linear dodge, one of the lightening blend modes, and paint away a bit more. These blend modes might give you more of the reflective brightness you want. Play with it.

I left out:
Use a medium soft brush of the approximate size (smaller if anything) of the pupil and paint with black on the mask to reveal more of the pupil. Set the opacity of the brush at about 60% to start.
And one other thing. When you make the circle which you are going to use when creating the mask, you might want to feather it a bit to give you a head start on your painting out, but that is basically what the soft brush will do. Or you can feather it a lot and you probably won't need to use the brush. :D

Hope this is what you wanted. :mrgreen:
And welcome to PSG Aqua.
 
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Aqua

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Thank you Hoogle. Trying out your recommendations now. Will get back to you. Thanks again.
 

Aqua

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Oh my gosh !! That is amazing ibclare! Excellent reflection. I'm on my way out right now but will absolutely try your recommended reply. Just amazing what you have created! Please look for the reply to my post as I appreciate your detailed response in regards to the confusing tutorial I tried to make sense of (for hours) today.

Thanks again
 

Aqua

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ibclare,

Ok spent some time on your response before I had to run some errands.

I'm still confused. Sorry. I would really appreciate it if you walk me thru this step by step. I know it takes time to write a post like what I'm asking but please help.

You said....

"The circle you create is to make a circular selection for the mask you will create on your object
The object is then transformed to scale and to perspective"

Are you saying to simply create a circle ands color it black? I originally created another layer (duplicated my "big eye" background and colored in the iris "black". What I do with this next is confusing. Please clarify.

"Then the object is spherized"

Yes I understand this part and how to accomplish this. Thank you.

"Now control click or command click the thumbnail of the circle layer to make the selection"

Ok so its Control + Click and NOT Option + Click (or Alt + Click) as in the tutorial. I understand now. Thank you. I hit control + clicked the thumbnail of the circle layer (or what I consider to be a circle layer if that's right) located in the layers pallett and I see the circled layer picture was selected. What happens next is confusing.

"Next select the object layer and apply the layer mask"

Please explain. How do i accomplish this? What layer is the object layer? Do you mean to say the reflective picture layer? How do I apply the layer mask? I created a layered mask next to the circled black iris I created. Is this the correct place to create the layer mask? I appreciate your patience.
 

Aqua

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ibclare,

You said.....

>>>here's another using one of the lightening blend modes:
Attachment 15674

Have fun!

I clicked on the attachement and the forum gave me an error message that said,

Invalid Attachment specified. If you followed a valid link, please notify the administrator.

I would like to see that example. Please resend. Thank you.
 

Hoogle

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Here is a simple Tutorial

Open up image of eye

drag in the reflection picture to a layer above it and turn of visibility of the layer

Use the eliptical marquee tool to make a selection of the eye where you want to the reflection to be

you can now click inside your circle and reposition it is you were not accurate in your selection making sure you still have the eliptical tool selected.

now turn on the visibility of the reflection picture and make sure it is highlighted in the layers pallet

apply a layer mask as yu have a selection active the layer mask will automatically hde the rest of the image

position the reflection how you want it in the masks palett above the layers pallet by default should be a tab that says density and feather and add a feather to the mask

you should still have an active selection go to filter > distort > spherize and tweak the amount

change the layer blending mode to hard light and reduce the opacity so it looks good

your finished

alternatively here is a template just drag and drop your images into the 2 smart layers. Even included smart filters for you so it should even spherise your reflection for you
View attachment eye reflect.psd

Here is what you get
eye reflect.jpg
 

Aqua

Active Member
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Hi Hoogle

man-o-man that's awesome! Just spectacular!! I'm going thru your tutorial and will get back to you. Thanks so much for spending the time to help me. Will definitely get back to you. Hopefully by Sunday. Talk soon.
 

Aqua

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That's flat out amazing Paul but .... how did you accomplish that? Thank you.
 

Paul

Former Member
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Eye image make a new layer then open another new layer with the new image on it, drag the new image on top of the first one (eye image) then convert to soft light (depending on your own image quality) adjust sliders to suit, the text was just a close match to the veins in the eye then did a little warping to give it more realism, adjust lighting.
 

Aqua

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Hoogle

You said...

>>>position the reflection how you want it in the masks palett above the layers pallet by default should be a tab that says density and feather and add a feather to the mask

Also forgot to mention.... I am using Photoshop version 7 thus there is no Mask Pallett. Therefore the feathering of the mask edges is done with brushes (like you recommended). But where or how do I utilize the "density" setting for masks in photoshop 7?
 
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Aqua

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Hi Members,

Can anyone please tell me how to open the attachments that are on this post? Two members kindly replied with attachments. Every time I try to open these attachments an error message pops up that says,

"Invalid Attachment specified. If you followed a valid link, please notify the administrator".

What does this mean? How do I open these attachments?

Thank you kindly.
 
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Hoogle

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if you are referring to the attachments from Clare and Paul looks like they have deleted there images or an error in the thread.
 

Aqua

Active Member
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Hi Hoogle,

Yes you are correct in regards to the attachments I am referring to. Thanks for helping. I just wanted to be sure it wasn't an issue on this end.

Thank you
 

Aqua

Active Member
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Hoogle,

I am utilizing your post in regards to making a reflecting eye. It makes sense and works fine. Ibclare's post was amazing as well and she offered some great suggestions as well. I'm still confused as to what she is referring to in regards to my original question about creating a "sphere" (coloring-in the iris using the brush tool and coloring it black).

I understand there are multiple ways of doing the same thing in photoshop and perhaps your method of using the elliptical marquee tool is another way of accomplishing the same thing as coloring-in the iris to create a sphere (see my first post in this thread please).

Thank you for your time.
 

Hoogle

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Scrap the Sphere

That is what happens when you run the spherize filter replace the word "Sphere" with the word "circle" created with the eliptical Marquee tool
 

Aqua

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Ok got it! Thanks

Maybe when I get time tomorrow, I'll upload the project I'm working on so you can have a look and tell me what I'm doing wrong. I have a band and I'm putting together a press kit/promotional kit and I am using a reflective eye as our cover sheet to the press kit. The cool thing is that there are six members in the band and I have each member being reflected in the eye.

All the pictures were basically cropped from various events individually and placed into the eye. I had to tweak each picture in regards to spherizing, hard light mode, perspective and opacity. Lots of work. I them discovered that I can get a better look if I could somehow save only the layers that contain the band members and save it as one layer. This way I can add the effects to one big band instead of six individual pictures.

Here's how I accomplished this task. After placing each of the six pictures into the eye and adding all effects (using six layers - one for each band member) and also utilizing your recommended method, I then hid the eye (background image). All that was left is the pictures of the six musicians. I then saved this as a psd file and loaded it back into the project as one picture that shows all six members. All in one new layer. I turned off (or hid) the remaining six individual layers that contained each of the six band members (no longer needed those). Now I can spherize the whole band instead of doing it one at a time for six members.

The problem I'm having is that after all is said and done, it doesn't quite look like a reflection. It still looks more like a picture of a band with six musicians inside an eye. This is even after spherize, hard light blend mode, opacity selected and perspective added.

Maybe you could have a look and tell me what I'm doing wrong. It doesn't look bad it just could use a better reflective look.

Thank you Hoogle.
 

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