In this tutorial I will be teaching you how to add some nice shine and a reflection to your images. The image we will be using is like my signature although you are free to use your own images. This tutorial was made in Photoshop CS. SHINE First off create a new image. Make it a decent size (give youself a nice room to work with, you can always crop later). Add the shape you want to add the shine to like in the image below. (mine is a rounded rectangle - radius 15px. Dark glue gradient with a slight white inner glow) Now create a new layer and name it shine. CTRL - Click on the layer below (the shape layer) and then select the elliptical marquee tool, make sure it is set to 'Subtract from Selection'. Now drag out an area so you leave yourself a small shape at the top like the one in the image below. (this may require taking more of the selection away by repeatedly dragging over the selected areas you want to get rid of) Now go to Select > Modify > Contract > 1px. Now set your foreground colour to white and choose the gradient tool. Make sure the gradient is set to 'Foreground to Transparent'. Drag from the top of your image to about half-way between the bottom of the selection and the middle of your image. Adjust the opacity of your shine until it looks more a part of the image (you'll nee to do that by eye for your image - I set mine to 65%) Duplicate that layer and then go to Edit > Transform > Flip Vertical. Move this layer to the bottom of your image and lower the opacity until it's not so striking (I used 40% for my image) Now create a new layer and call it 'Blurry' Now CRTL-Click on your bottom shine layer to highlight it's selection on the blurry layer and go to Select > Feather > 50px. (you may get a box appear saying your selection edges won't be visible, click ok as this doesn't matter) Using your gradient tool (with the same gradient as set in a previous step) drag from the bottom of the image to the middle of the image. Lower the opacity of this layer until it's only just visible. (Mine only needed a slight adjustment to about 90%) Now CRTL-Click on the main shape layer. Hold CTRL and SHIFT and Press 'I' to invert the selection. Now press delete (this will get rid of anything on the 'Blurry' layer that is outside the main shape - useful if you're thinking of putting a background behind all this when you're done) There you have a nice shine! REFLECTION To compliment the shine - we're going to add some reflected text. WIth your document open click the text tool. Select your desired font, colour and size (I used white, size 72 and Tw Cen MT Condensed). Add your text in the middle. (I used a space in between my letters as I think it's a nice look) Now lower the opacity of the text layer slightly (I used 80%) Duplicate the text layer and go to Edit > Transform > Flip Vertical. Move this layer so it's positioned just under the text above it. Now click the 'Add layer mask tool' (located at the bottom of your layers pallet it looks like a grey rectangle with a white circle in it). Select the gradient tool, set your foreground colour to black and your background colour to white. Make sure the 'Foreground to Background' Gradient is selected. The layer mask shows areas that are white and doesn't show areas that are black, so drag as the diagram below directs you to. Now lower the opacity of that layer slightly until it looks a little more subtle. (I used 50%) There we have our text reflection! I hope this tutorial helps you!
Thanks for the great help Matt. After so long time, today I got time to make a shadow design.....Your tutorial helped me a lot, please tell me where I am lacking behind in this design.
I think you need something to define the edge of the iamge a bit more, it's non existant on the left hand side. I tihnk the top and bottom black bars need to be a bit more gradual as well. So they're a bit more 'full'
That one's a lot better than the last one definitely, maybe reduce the effect you've got on the edges of the background though.
