Photoshop tutor

Add Reflections To Christmas Ornaments Using Photoshop 3D

The holiday season is time of reflection and with a few simple steps, you can reflect your favorite picture in 3D Christmas ornaments for your Season Greetings cards and images.

Materials Needed:

• Adobe Photoshop CS3 or CS4 Extended
• 3DVIA for Adobe® Photoshop® plug-in

Step 1: Open a background image

Start by opening a photograph in Photoshop as the background for our holiday card. I am using a stock photo, but you can use image.

Step 2: Import a 3D Christma ornament

With the image in place, add a 3D tree ornament.

Windows Users If you are using Photoshop on a Windows machine, an easy way to search for 3D models is to use the 3DVIA for Adobe® Photoshop® plug-in. You can download it free from
http://www.3dvia.com/software/3dvia-labs/photoshop-3d-plugin.

With the plug-in installed, use the Photoshop command File->Import->Search 3DVIA and login to 3DVIA with your free user account. Search for “ornament” and then scroll down the model list until you see the red ornament. Click the Import button.

Mac Users If you are working on a Mac, you can open a 3D file with the File->Open command and import the ornament.dae file provided. You can find additional 3D models for Photoshop at 3dvia.com. Be sure to download the DAE versions on the files.

Step 3: Place the ornament in the photograph

After the ornament opens in Photoshop, drag the ornament from its own window into the image window with the tree branches.

Step 4: Reposition the ornament under a branch

Move the ornament into a nice position under one of the branches using the 3D Pan, 3D Rotate and 3D Slide tools.

Step 5: Create the reflection

Open the 3D panel if you have not done so yet. Window->3D. In the 3D Materials window, click on the material of the red ball portion of the ornament. You can turn the material on and off by clicking on the eye on the left to determine which material you want to change. In this case, the material name is named GraphicMaterial_1. Now, add the reflection image by clicking on the icon just to the right of Environment in the materials portion
of the panel. Load a texture for the fake reflection. I used a stock image of two cute kids.

Play around with the settings forGlossiness, Shininess and Reflectivity until you have your ornament looking just right. I have the settings at Glossiness = 80%, Shininess = 60%, and Reflectivity = 20.

Step 6: Center the reflection

Now to center the kids’ image on the ornament, use the 3D Orbit Tool (N) to rotate the picture around on the ornament. Once the image is centered, go back to the 3D Rotate Tool (K)

Step 7: Add another ornament

Add another ornament to the scene by repeating steps 2 through 6. For my example, I used the green oval shaped ornament found in the 3DVIA search. I drew two lines from the second ornament to one of the branches to make sure the ornament was not hanging out in space.

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Step 8: Personalize

Personalize your image with a special message