Greetings, this is Senior Member PBl--Ahem, excuse me...

Salutations, Ladies and Gentlmen, 'tis I, PBlade, here before you today to offer a tutorial, or perhaps an exchanging of methods, if you will, regarding those cool looking enhancements some of us have for our spectacle devices. Some, I know, already know how to do 'em, and some don't. This little guide is for both, to show how I do it, to teach some how to do it, and to exchange with others how they do it. Although this tutorial is one way of creating reflection, I know there will be others, so don't feel limited by it.

However, I will pay every person who uses this tutorial.*

So, without further rambling, I shall begin.

For this guide, I'll be using good old Terracus as my model, and his trusty System Shades as my base glasses. The image has been slightly enhanced already, but that has no bearing on any of this tutorial, I'm just picky. Feel free to use this image as a tryout image if you want to give it a go yourself.


What's that? Oh... He says Hello.

Well, to begin with, we'll start by duplicating the background layer, as it's always good to have something to fall back on. After that, we'll crack on by making sure the Shades themselves aren't too aliased. If they do have a bit of jagged egdge around them, just see to them with a delicate bit of smudging, at a small size, say about 5, on about 30-35% strength and 0% hardness. This process can take a while, as the bottom edge of the shades can look "wobbly" after smuding, but keep at it, and it'll be fine. And if it isn't working just go back to the old layer, and ignore the jaggies. They're probably not that bad anyway.



Once you're happy with how the glasses look, and all the aliasing has gone (Or whatever!) we can start to work on the shadows that the shades would cast on the face. So you'll need a new layer. So make one. Make one now. Then name it, if you wish.


Original, I know. And oh snap I didn't dupe the background layer...

Next, you have to make sure that you know where the light is coming from in the image, as it will dictate where the shadow falls. It's something you need to remember the entire way through, so don't forget, dammit!


I love diagrams. So much.

The next stage is to create the shadows that is cast. The two places that will always be shaded are the areas underneath the arms of the glasses, as they ... well they just do, alright? What you'll need to do is select that appropriately named new layer from before, take your polygonal lasso tool, and draw a clone of it it underneath, then fill it with black, like so:




Once you've done that, cook at Gas Mark 9 until golden brow.... Oh, sorry, wrong tutorial.

Once you've done that, you'll need deselect and get rid of your lasso constraints, and then hit it with a Gaussian blur at around 1.4 and watch the milk and honey roll in:



Then, using that as your starting point, continue to put shadows in all the places needed, I.E - The other arm, and where the afore mentioned light source casts a shadow. In my pic, the result is:



Viola. You've created the shadow! Now, we move onto the reflection itself!

I would advise against using a brush to create the base for the reflection, because it can be quite hard to work with and can create something of a bad looking effect. If you want a simple streak of light, I'd advise just brushing across the target area a few times with a very high strength dodge tool, to create a blast of white, and then
leave it at that.

I, on the other hand, will be using a stock screenshot I have of a cityscape downtown. Now I realise that, given the image I'm working with, it's completely out of context, but hey, I don't care.

First of all, find your stock image, resize it first, then copy and paste it into your current working image. Resize it appropriately and lower the Opacity so that you can see what you're doing. Then arrange it into a position that puts the area you want to reflect in the glasses, like so:



Then Duplicate the layer and hide one layer. That will be used for the other eye, but we're focusing on one at a time. Now you have everything you want in place, erase around the pane of the Shade so that you're left with the image on the interior, ready to be worked with.



Remember where the light is coming from at all times, remember, as it'll form the basis of the reflection. For the light and image I was working with, I chose these bevel and Emboss effects (below) to give the most realistic feel.



Once you're happy with the settings, you can play about with the Opacity of the layer, and smudge it into the corners a tad to make it look as real and effective as you can.



Once you're totally happy with one eye, you can reveal the hidden copy of your reflection image, and do the same for the other eye. One thing I've noticed, at least for me, is when dealing with bevel and emboss on multiple layers, the "Angle and Altitude" settings are universal across all layers, so adapting them in one layer will change the face of them all, therefore I would advise against meddling with them, especially with only one source of concentrated light in the image.

Once you're done with them both, you may sit back and bask in the glory you have created: