Photoshop Mirror Reflections...
Creating the mirror background
At this point we'll need a background to reflect the image off of. Some people like smooth, level graduated backgrounds, and others like spotlighted. Apple uses sort of a spotlighted background, note where the 'hot spot' is in their images. (Note, if you're using a white-out background, then no graduations are necessary.)
We'll use a Black to White graduation first, just for the sake of this demonstration.
I'm holding the crossover point of the gradation to just below the horizontal center of the scene, and the lighter part never achieves white. I accomplish this by starting the gradient about 20% down the scene, and dragging about 20% beyond the bottom edge of the window. This brings a 20 to 30% gray to the edge.
Now we can begin working with the reflected image.
First set the transparency. I used about 40%, but that will change as we move along.
To make the reflection realistic, as it moves away from the object across the glass surface, it gets more faint. So we'll need to simulate that "fall-off" by using a layer mask.
Select the reflection layer, and then click on the Layer Mask button. You'll see the white mask appear next to the layer thumbnail. Click in the Layer Mask thumbnail, and its borders will become doubled to indicate it's selected.
Now, using the gradient tool drag a tight, quick gradient from black to white. You'll notice how the black masks image and the white allows it to show. The reason I'll use a mask here is to adjust the amount of transparance by moving the actual mask up and down.
Turn off the lock links between the thumbnails, make sure the mask is selected, and with the move tool, you can drag in your image window to adjust where the gradient falls on the image. Very handy.
At this point we're done.
