Requesting assistance: Reflection smoothing

[viewfinder88]

I have these product shots I do for web display. Could anyone please suggest a technique to smooth out the reflection of the subject? So far I've just cut out the deck with quick selection and am left with this kinda chunky reflection. Before, I would just shamelessly use the brush tool but that takes an inordinate amount of time and patience. I am a novice. Thank you very much.

 

[ALB68]

Try this. I am assuming your wanting this to not have the two white reflections - just select what you want to blend in, go to Edit, Fill and choose Content Aware ..magic
You might also use Quick Mask. It is applied with your brush tool, be sure it's set to Black foreground, white background. Opacity 100%. Type Q to start and just start painting the mask. When finished, Q again and you will see your marching ants. Reactivate if needed by hitting Q again. Subtract from the mask by holding Alt/Option key as you paint.

 

[viewfinder88]

Actually, more like this. I did this as well but that under shadow/shades/smoothed-reflection took me an hour at least. I just figured there was some sort of solid time saving 'professional' way of doing it. I have many others to do and the task is so daunting.

 

[Tom Mann]

To me, smoothing an incorrectly simulated shadow / reflection after you already made it falls in the category of closing the barn door after the horses have left.

Instead, since simulating shadows and reflections is quite easy, and you obviously already know how to do it, I would simply start over with whatever shape you think is most appropriate. In the quick-and-dirty example below, I started with a plain rectangle that didn't include the rack-mounting cutouts on the sides. I then flipped and move it, used the perspective transform tool to get it into a suitable trapezoidal shape, grayed it, then used the Gaussian blur on it.

Also, you don't seem to be distinguishing a general shadow (ie, cast from an implied light source behind the tape deck) from the potentially sharper but weaker (positive) reflections of the details on front panel. I would handle them separately.

HTH,

Tom

 

[Tom Mann]

The more I think about it the more I feel that you must be absolutely clear in your own mind what situation you were trying to simulate in Photoshop. For example, what is the material in front of the tape deck? If it's white seamless paper, there will be absolutely no reflections, and all shadows. On the other if it's something like clear plexiglass, commonly used in photographing product, it will be almost all reflection and no shadows.

You also need to be absolutely clear in your own mind where the light sources are. For example, if there is a relatively significant light source behind the tape deck, you will clearly get a shadow on most materials. On the other hand, if it is supposed to be mostly lit from the front, you will see almost all reflections, and few shadows, however, in that case, the distribution of light between the front and sides of the object is not currently appropriate. If it was supposed to have been photographed in a light tent, you will likely get a mixture of both shadows and reflections.

It may seem pedantic to force yourself to think in such detailed, concrete terms, but I'm can assure you it will help in the long run when you are trying to simulate a situation like this.

HTH,

Tom

 

[viewfinder88]

Tom,

Thanks for your suggestions. I think i'll continue to do this by hand. I do appreciate the response though.

 

[IamSam]

Sorry, just joined.......I'm somewhat confused.......not a stretch for me........are you wanting a shadow or a reflection?

 

[viewfinder88]

I would like to maintain the realistic reflection I get from the plexiglass I use as the base. But I also need to have it blend smoothly into a solid white background for the website I'm working on. (I'd post a link but I haven't made enough posts yet apparently) [theelectronicengineers]

Doing this by hand it just so time consuming to get it right and with multiple angles and with different configurations (with reels, without reels, different reels, etc...) the results will vary from pic to pic which is also annoying.

So I'm searching for a solution.

 

[IamSam]

Is the first image you posted the starting point image that you have to work with?

 

[viewfinder88]

That is the starting point I would start with to begin smoothing out the reflection. The first image is after I've cut it out with the quick selection tool to get the white background.

 

[IamSam]

Have you thought about just cutting out the image itself and not the reflection? You can add your own reflection with a gradient that fades the reflection.

 

[viewfinder88]

I tried this. The result looks...bad, imo. I do this for the reels that are listed for sale though and they look alright. As for the deck, It just looks really cheap.

 

[IamSam]

Do you have one you can post so we can see if we can help you figure out what may be wrong?

 

[viewfinder88]

No, not anymore. Once I'm finished with what I'm working on at the moment, I can recreate it.

 

[IamSam]

Ok, give me a few minutes to see what I can do. I will see if I can make a quick reflection that you might like. Then I can explain it.

 

[viewfinder88]

Thank you!

 

[IamSam]

OK, how does this look?

 

[viewfinder88]

Looks a lot better than what I was able to achieve! That shadow underneath the deck make it seem like it's actually sitting on something instead of just hovering over an artificial reflection. I would love to know how you did it!

 

[IamSam]

Sending you a PM.

 

[viewfinder88]

Thanks Sam!