Putting stars in water reflection

[randomtom]

Hello,

This is an image I'm practicing composites with:



How would I go about putting some stars in the water reflections and making it look as 'natural' as possible?

FYI - the bridge reflection is how it looked to the naked eye (water was totally still).

Thanks,
Tom

 

[IamSam]

Hey Tom.

This is one way to do this.

Here is the image with the original sky removed.


Here is the new sky.


Of course the new sky is placed on a layer below the original with the sky removed.
Now looks like this.


Now to add the stars to the water.

Duplicate the new sky with stars layer.
Place it at the very top layer.
Flip that layer upside down and then flip it horizontally so that it's a mirror image of the replaced sky.


Now set that layers blending mode to SCREEN.


Lower that layers opacity to 21% (or to your liking)


And the final step is to add a layer mask and use the Brush Tool to mask out the areas where you don't want the reflected starry sky to appear.