Post by OrcaBob on Sept 15, 2009 3:36:42 GMT -5
Black Water Dani: A Tutorial
I originally posted this in the old photography board. Why let it go to waste? ;D
(Low-res copy of the finished image is at the bottom of the post.)
The original photo is from a shoot a year ago ago, but I only got around to trying this reflection technique late last year. That's a Photoshop trick I saw at a NAPP seminar two years. The seminar's example faked a mountain range's reflection off a lake.
In the original she's got a robe draped around her hiney.
I actually had a couple of models see the picture and ask how I got all that water in the studio. One of them didn't seem to believe me when I explained this was shot in a friend's garage and there wasn't a drop of water in the room!
The process is:
1) Insert a new layer (100% black fill) on top of the original layer; this provides the final background while leaving the original photo available for later reference. Call it WORKING BACKGROUND.
2) In the original photo layer, lasso the top half of the woman (because of the original photo's black background, there's no need for accuracy except for the waist; define a convex (outward-curving) waistline to simulate the shape of the waist at the proposed waterline). Copy the top half of the woman.
2) Create a 100% black layer at the highest level and call it REALGIRL. Paste the copied top half of the woman into the REALGIRL layer and position it so the waistline is slightly above the vertical midpoint of the layer.
3) Duplicate the REALGIRL layer and call it REFLECTION.
4) In the REFLECTION layer, select the woman. Select the menu option EDIT > TRANSFORM > FLIP VERTICAL.
5) Move the new upside-down image to align the reflection and the real woman at the sides of the waist; there will be a lens-shaped overlap.
6) In the REFLECTION layer, carefully erase the overlap. It's best to erase lightly, and better too little than a little too much, because erasing slightly too much will leave you with a black ring around the woman's waist.
7) Gently blur the edges of the intersection on both layers (REALGIRL and REFLECTION).
8) Apply a black-and-white gradient mask to the REFLECTION layer. It takes some playing around to make the reflection fade realistically.
9) Now distort the REFLECTION layer with FILTER > DISTORT > ZIGZAG... In my example, AMOUNT = 10, RIDGES = 5, Option = POND RIPPLES. Getting the ripples right was the hardest part. I tried all the different distort options.
My sister uses a third-party plugin that makes much more realistic ripples, including shorter wavelength closer to the center and longer wavelength farther out.
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