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Posted on 29/07/07 12:38:03 PM

chris berry
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water reflection

Did a tutorial in this month's Digital Photo, where the attached pic was duplicated into a mirror image, and a wavy reflection effect created with displacement maps. Problem is it doesn't look convincing because I can't create ripples across the surface, just the wave effect which to be honest could be created far quicker with the ocean ripple filter. Other than individually creating each ripple with dodge and burn, does anyone have any ideas?
Chris

Posted on 29/07/07 7:05:05 PM

Steve Mac
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Re: water reflection

What about using a water image for the displace map?

For example...

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Posted on 29/07/07 7:15:00 PM

chris berry
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Re: water reflection

Hi Steve
I had thought of this but wondered if there was a effects way of doing this. Did you shoot this shot?
Chris

Posted on 29/07/07 7:27:35 PM

Steve Mac
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Re: water reflection

I did shoot this one. If you want the hi-res copy, email me and I'll send it to you.

I did a quicky with the water layer under the duplicate of the trees layer and set the tree layer to overlay. Under that layer I also added a gradient layer from the top of the water line(dark brown) to the foreground of the water (transparent). I also desaturated the water layer but maybe too much. Being at sundown the water usually reflects the darker sky.

It's really hard to tell if it worked well. The picture was really small. Lost a lot of detail.

You may also want to blur the reflection layer of the trees.

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Posted on 29/07/07 7:40:15 PM

Steve Mac
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Re: water reflection

Here is what I used.
Like I said, this was very quick. I'm sure there are many ways to do this. If I had a larger image, I could see the results better.

Hope this helps.

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Posted on 29/07/07 8:08:08 PM

rufus
Destructive Demon
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Re: water reflection

chris, I've not seen the article but this is how to make a displacement map and use this to distort the refelction.
Make sure that your canvas is at the size you want the completed image to be as the displacement map must be the same size.
Fill a new layer with 50% grey.
Use Filter/Noise/Add Noise, 400%, Gausian, Monochromatic.
Filter/Blur/Motion Blur about 25px.
Use Levels to increase the contrast.
Select and copy this layer (Ctrl-A, Ctrl-C).
Open a new document (Ctrl-N) named 'map' and paste (Ctrl-V).
Give the map some perspective with Edit/Transform/Distort, keeping the bottom half of the canvas filled with the noise.
Filter/Blur/Gausian Blur about 3 px save and close.
With your 'reflection' layer active, use Filter/Distort/Displace, adjusting the horizontal and vertical scales to suit your resolution, using 'map' as your displacement map.
My attempt is here.

rufus

Posted on 29/07/07 8:14:59 PM

chris berry
Overhead Overlord
Posts: 724

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Re: water reflection

Hi Rufus
That's more or less how they did it in the mag. My problem with this methid, as smart as it is, is that you can't have ripples running across the surface. You can only have the underlying ripple effect. I think the only solution is what Steve Mac suggested, ie using a shot of a real water surface for the displacement map.

Thanks for your help, however - your method's better than the magazine's.

Chris

Posted on 29/07/07 8:32:10 PM

rufus
Destructive Demon
Posts: 243

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Re: water reflection

chris, I think I know what you mean, here I have copied and pasted the map back into the picture and clipped it to the reflection layer, changed the blending mode to 'overlay' and adjusted the opacity to suit.

rufus

Posted on 29/07/07 8:43:56 PM

chris berry
Overhead Overlord
Posts: 724

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Re: water reflection

That's more like it - I'll give that a try.
Thanks!

Posted on 30/07/07 7:55:04 PM

chris berry
Overhead Overlord
Posts: 724

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Re: water reflection

rufus wrote:
chris, I've not seen the article but this is how to make a displacement map and use this to distort the refelction.
Make sure that your canvas is at the size you want the completed image to be as the displacement map must be the same size.
Fill a new layer with 50% grey.
Use Filter/Noise/Add Noise, 400%, Gausian, Monochromatic.
Filter/Blur/Motion Blur about 25px.
Use Levels to increase the contrast.
Select and copy this layer (Ctrl-A, Ctrl-C).
Open a new document (Ctrl-N) named 'map' and paste (Ctrl-V).
Give the map some perspective with Edit/Transform/Distort, keeping the bottom half of the canvas filled with the noise.
Filter/Blur/Gausian Blur about 3 px save and close.
With your 'reflection' layer active, use Filter/Distort/Displace, adjusting the horizontal and vertical scales to suit your resolution, using 'map' as your displacement map.
My attempt is here.

rufus

Here's the final version