Glossyness

[Shawn Farrell]

I'm working on a new banner right now, and it is 748x150.

I made a new layer and took the rectangle tool and made a selection from the top to about a third of the way down the banner (the select is 50 pixels), filled it in with white, and set the opacity to 23. Will this look alright, and give it a genuine effect? If not, what can I do to make it better? (sorry I can't post the image right now)

[c130]

Use a white to transparent gradient rather than a solid fill. Choose a white foreground colour, grab the gradient tool, and pick white to transparent from the selection of preset gradients. Then click above your image, an inch or two in the grey area, and drag straight down (hold shift) to a couple of inches below the image. The gradient will appear in your selected area. Then adjust the layer's opacity til you like it.

Also it can help to make a black to white gradient on a layer below, set it to soft light or overlay, and reduce the transparency so it just has a minor effect on the image below - it should become slightly darker at the top, and slightly lighter at the bottom. This makes the gloss stand out a little more, and gives the effect of light being refracted through the glass object.

[Shawn Farrell]

I'll try that. Thanks.

Edit: I got this as a result.

img300.imageshack.us/img300/3734/ffhb7v51ki8.png

I used Soft Light and a 45% opacity for the black to white layer (I made sure it was below the white to transparent layer). Then I made the white to transparent layer 50%.

[c130]

You didn't keep the top 1/3 of the image selected when you did the white to transparent grad.

Look at what my example image is like, and use some logic to figure out how to use the tools available to do it yourself.

[Shawn Farrell]

Oh, I forgot to do the selection tool. I'll do it again. lol. Thanks.

Edit: This looks more like yours:

img153.imageshack.us/img153/8010/secondtn9.png

[c130]

That's the right idea.

Personally I wouldn't use it on that image though - or I'd select 2/3 of it instead of 1/3. The edge of the gloss cuts across all their eyes, and makes for very confusing composition.

[Pritchard [Epic][Girly Boy]]

charmedone92 said:

Oh, I forgot to do the selection tool. I'll do it again. lol. Thanks.

Edit: This looks more like yours:

img153.imageshack.us/img153/8010/secondtn9.png

Not to be an arse or anything but did you really expect it to do any thing with out you telling it where to apply the effect?

[Shawn Farrell]

Why does it matter? My question has already been answered.