kyu81

Alright.... I've been using Ulead PhotoImpact 7 for years now and lately I've seen some of the amazing things people have pulled off with photoshop and decided to at least ATTEMPT to learn it myself. I can't say the transition has been exactly friendly. I'm using Photoshop 7 as well, still, I am having trouble learning certain things. Still, I've found this website MORE than helpful. The current photo manip I'm working on right now however has got me stumped. So I come to you kind folks for help on the subject.

I would like to take a picture, cut it out an place it on a black background, skew it so that it looks as though it were laying upon a tabletop and you were viewing it slightly from above and on an angle. This much I can do, but I would also like to make it look as thought it WERE a photograph laying there upon the background. Adding sort of a glossy finish to it. Now herein lies my question. How can I add a glossy finish to a picture in the simplest way possible?

MsOz

Maybe the plastic wrap filter? That or a painted highlight on a separate layer with the opacity adjusted.

UnmatchedPowa15

try duplicating the layer that you are looking to make "glossy", run a CHROME filter (Filter->Sketch->Chrome) on it and set the layer's blend mode to SCREEN, reduce the opacity a bit and it should give you some strong highllights.

kyu81

Thanks so much for the advice guys. I did end up using the plastic wrap filter and while it wasn't EXACTLY how I'd pictured it in my head, I was rather happy with the results. The picture is originally just a photo of Gackt, no editing done save for colour modification and I did have a friend put the "polaroid" border around it. So in a sense, I did very little work on it myself heh.

retired_paddza

If you want glossy, try just creating a layer above the photo and apply black/white gradients to that layer... then set the blending mode to something different. Try lots of things to see what makes the best effect... soft light, screen, etc. Play with the "fill" for the layer also as this will change the amount of the effect.

Plastic wrap is too sharp and textured to make something like a photo look "glossy"... the gloss on photos is mostly from the light reflecting back and it mostly makes hotspots, not contours.

Experimentation is a good way to go though... better than a tutorial at first... just get to know the program... get a feel for it. Keep it up!

$0.02

kyu81

Yes this isn't exactly how I'd envisioned it to begin with. Not the glossy effect I'd been looking for BUT I do feel that the plastic wrapping lent a rather "water-damaged" look to the picture itself, which suited my purposes just fine. Again thank you folks for all your advice.