jpfitness

you did a super job there Stu well done [righton]
sfm

kiwi

Thanks Sue [righton]

Black or no black, one can add a glossy look to every color and you've proven that it's possible. Well done Stu! [righton]

Doc

Kiwi, all...

Sorry it took some time for me to reply. What can I say but FANTASTIC! Thanks very much for the suggestions and 'tute'.

The one thing that still bothers me tho is the window reflection...it makes the magazine look 'glassy' more than 'glossy'.

I took the window, skewed it a bit, had guasian blur it a bit [shhh], made it grey scale too.

I still need to work on the highlight on the left, but here's my latest try.

Doc

Looks better Doc

kiwi

That does look good Doc [righton]



Another way to get away from the reflection angle and make it more realistic is shadows that cover the whole image,ie a palm frond that starts at the bottom of the image and covers part of the book and carries on to the other side of the wood as well if you know what I mean,remember to add the depth of the book into the shadow though



Maybe coffee stains on the wood work as well Doc.



Stu.

Blinky2004

Just wanted to make it clear to Doc that to create the illusion of a reflection, the reflected subject matter must appear above the printed material on the book's cover. Highlights and reflections should cover over, and even wash out/obscure sometimes, the images seen on the paper.

That's what actually creates this illusion.
Take another look at Stu's example, it shows what i mean.

Good work though. [righton]
Keep at 'er.

kiwi

Best way I find to acheive what Mark has mentioned is make a gradient,blur it then copy using the gradient as a selection to a new layer and tweak.



The glass look is because the reflection is to sharp Doc,I found blurring a great help.Also white seems to be what causes all the problems,its to specular for a large area



Do you like this one better?



Stu.

kiwi

That grey strip down the binding was meant to be layer which was turned off [doh]



Stu.

Smoke420

I like it wendy [righton] And that grey strip actually makes it look like a real book (real books have curves on the binding), so I think the grey strip should stay, but the erased part of the strip should be fixed.