How to Add Reflection To Sunglasses Using Photoshop

As I continue with my Project365 and I learn different photo techniques and Photoshop things to do to the photos I will share them with you. Today, I took a simple photo I took with my point and shoot Canon and created an interesting photo as you can see here on the left.

Adding the reflection of clouds to sunglasses is actually a very simple and easy project to do.

STEP ONE

Open the original photo in Photoshop

The way this photo was taken we can assume that I am looking straight into the sky so what we expect to see on the sunglass reflection are clouds. You can actually use anything in the reflection, you can use palm trees, the ocean, an interesting animal, etc..

STEP TWO

Open up the picture in photoshop that you are going to use for the reflection.

Once you have both photos open in Photoshop copy the sky photo as a layer into the sunglasses photo and put it behind your sunglasses photo.

Remember to make copies of your files and work on those, never work on original photos because if you do something wrong while experimenting and want to go back to the original you will always have the original untouched and can start over at any time.

STEP 3

What we need to do now is create a mask covering the lense of the glasses so the sky photo shows in the back. To do this just add a mask to the sunglasses photos

To add a vector mask make sure you are selecting the photo you want the mask to be created, then click on the option “add vector mask” which looks like a rectangle with a circle inside, it is the option right next to the fx button.

Once the mask has been created, select the mask and erase the lense.

after erasing the mask your photo should look like this. I like to use a soft brush when erasing so when we add the sky photo behind it it sorta blends into the edges of the lens.

STEP 4

Now that you erased the lens, and the sky or clouds image is behind the original photo you should be able to see it coming through the glasses. You can move around and position the photo to fit your desired look.

Your final result should look something similar to this.

STEP 5

Adding the final touches. Right now, it looks very  harsh and because my sunglasses are purple I wanted the sky reflection to have a tint of purple, so it could actually look like they sky from above is reflecting on the glasses.

So what I did was created a purple rectangle and lower its opacity to around 30% just to give the sky a tint of purple.

Here you could see how I moved the sky photo to fit better behind the sunglasses and where I added the purple rectancle.

On this photo I clicked on the layers menu the little eye next to the sunglasses photo so you could see how I had my photos.

so after the tint we are done, you can use any color depending on the color of your sunglasses.

your final result should look something similar to this.

I hope this tutorial helped you, feel free to leave me some feedback or a link to your reflection image.

until next time, ciao for now!!

Tagged as: glasses, how to, Photoshop, photoshop tutorial, reflection, sky reflection on glasses, sunglasses, tutorial