creating a reflection for your photo in photoshop

today, i want to talk about making a reflection on a product that have been my recent project. what i make here is not a simple reflection, it is a realistic reflection, not some icon reflection.

here what i'm talking about

a lot of people will make a reflection like this,

and they happy about it….. don't know why
for me, that is the most unrealistic thing ever…obviously,

there is a great website that talk about this and they are great!
http://phlearn.com/how-to-make-a-very-hard-reflection-in-photoshop

i am too want to give you some tips to create a reflection like this this product is very easy because of
1 thing: it touch the ground. because we don't have the information beneath the product, it will have a hard time creating the reflection, since this thing is on the ground, you only have to worry about making front reflection.

make a selection with rectangle marquee tool, but only select half of the corner of the box, use layer via copy to make a duplicate using that selection only.

do the same for the small side

so you got separate sides

select both of them, please remember to place them below the original picture (layer 0), and use free transform (ctrl + T), and select flip vertical.

place the reflection on the lowest point of the picture.

select 1 half of the picture, free transform, right click and select skew

drag the left side to make a perspective and align the picture bottom to bottom, repeat the process for the other.

then create a group, place both of them inside, make a mask, and use gradient to fade out, play with the opacity to make more transparent

that's it, i hope you enjoy it, and again, here is the result, see you next week

Exporting or Save only the inside of Artboard or Canvas in Illustrator

did you know that i am currently on some random post streak? i didn't stick to 1 particular topic in this blog, what i want is to share as much information and help to other as many as possible and this was my problem in the past that i think worth sharing. haha

how many of you have been stuck with this kind of problem. even i am one of you before. now i know how to handle this kind of trouble, so i will share it with you.

take example that you have a design that goes beyond the canvas / artboard border like this, and you want to export the exact size like this.

the very basic thing you do if you want to make a jpg or png from illustrator is go to file > export, but the result is always like this:

notice that what's inside the preview is not what you want, it will become like this when exported

so to solve this problem, all you have to do is notice the little checkbox on the bottom of the format called "use artboard", this will make sure that only inside the artboard or canvas that will be exported. 

some people give the solution by using file > save for web & device, that solution can also be use, so you can use to what you like, i just preferred this method (because there's no huge preview popup)

you can choose all to export all artboard (more than 1), or you can choose specific artboard number, you can check this by going to file > document setup, then choose edit artboard, or just press shift+O (not zero)

see the preview window to check if your design was properly cropped

you can also do this to the design that was smaller than the artboard / canvas, usually if you don't check the "use artboard", illustrator will crop it to every object inside, just repeat the process and you are the master of the artboard!

that's it for now, i hope this can help your problem and help brighten your day.

common search keyword (to help people find the solution here)

1 how to save canvas only in illustrator

2 how to save only what's inside canvas

3 how to export the artboard in illustrator

4 exporting canvas in illustrator

5 save within artboard/canvas

6 save as cropped image

7 save illustrator as jpg/png

Take Picture of White Object on White Background

today's post is a bit tricky to make, because what i am shooting today is white object on white background. there's only one that i found that was talking about this and he use studio lamp and some setup.
but, i have a different setup here, in my office, there's literally none, no studio nor space available to make that setup. so don't be discourage, i'm here to help for those who have trouble taking product photography indoor, office or home.

please read the post well, there's something that i need to talk about and i promise i'll be funny :).

so, what am i looking for? product photography that like stock photography, plain white background and an object, specifically feather (in this post). when i search "feather photography" all the result were artistic shot of a feather, so i'm search "white feather on white background" and found several photo that actually darken the feather.

white object is not really "white", it's our eyes that "think" that it is white. because our eye use "average metering" :), in term of dslr.
we calculate the surrounding color and light to make the color for the object we focus on. this calculation is actually use in some eye optical illusion, it think it's called chess board / shade color illusion. in case you doesn't want to go to youtube and search, here's the video


what the heaven and earth are you talking about? yes, i'm getting there about photo, just understand this concept for a moment and read again, the white object you see is not really "white", it's our eyes that "think" that it is white.

so, if you take a picture of a white object, don't be afraid to make it a little bit "grey", why? because that's how you can see and read the shape of white object.

white on computer (for me) is absolute pure white (maybe purest), so if you still insist on making you object white, you won't be able to compete with the white (like fighting the god of white).

taking a white object is best use a back lighting, so camera will read as it is and make fore object a bit darker (like making a sunset silhouette).

ok, enough talk, i think it's time to me to introduce the object i need to shot.

 

yes! it's a hair pin, cute product, isn't it? and my problem is the background cannot be move or using a back light. so my solution was:

take multiple exposure photo, then edit later. this will be hard to trace or mask. you can overlap the photo, place the brighter photo on top and add mask, then erase the feather part to reveal the darker photo, this will make the feather a little bit shown.

you can use other method such as level with mask, first is use mask on top, make the background white and erase parts that need to be darken.

here are other example when i only have 1 photo (different than taking multiple photo with different exposure), as you can see here, i use level for whitening the background, because it is necessary to have white background.

 red circle means that the details on that area is lost because it is too bright.

so you want to do is erase the level adjustment layer only a bit, with 10% brush opacity on the edge of the feathers.

 below is another example of using this method, this is different items.

 

this is not perfect, because we use manipulation software to achieve this, the best method is use the right equipment to take this kind of picture. and i don't have any of it. maybe this was for emergency use only...

that's for now, i hope you like this post.

Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon

this is so crazy and awesome! i just love this style when i first watch it.
i know its a bit late for that, because i just watch it a few days ago.

i personally don't like fps game, because of the limitation of field of view, but i play some fps before like counter strike, call of duty: modern warfare 1-3 (i just want to know what the hype with 3, then want to know the storyline, so i play 1-2).

what i want to discuss here is the use of neon style graphic as well as presentation for an old tv and old advertisement style. i think our are is coming back to the 80's-90's

i just want to learn how to make that kind of retro style, because it is very classic! i think this game is interesting, maybe I will watch the play-through.