Any tips or techniques for creating surfaces that look like they are wet?
As in you have an image of a street shot on a clear night but need to make it look like it rained so the road is wet casting highlights and reflections.
Or is it better to shoot a wet street?
Puddles
duplicate image layer, flip it so its upside down, pull it up so the horizon line matches the donor image, layer mask paint out the negative areas to create puddles on the road, you need a sharp edged brush, paint the puddles in you will notice the reflection, you need to stretch it slightly and consider using gradient filters in the mask to replicate fall off. To get a decent bevel on puddles consider using the bevel and emboss tool make sure the global light is going in the right direction.
Wet Sheen
For wet surfaces you can do the above, apply a motion blur filter (vertically), using the smudge tool add some ripples, lower the opacity and move the layer so it looks right on the scene. Once again use the layer mask consider using the gradient filter to replicate fall off. paint out parts of the layer which are not on the ground plane. Remember to vary the opacity in the scene to prevent it looking to fake.
There is a lot of manipulating it into place to get the right perspective, just take your time play with the blend modes, tip at night the reflections highlights are about a 1/3 of a stop greater and the darks are a third of a step lower, (I think this is a optical effect due to specularity)
Hope this helps
Rich
This is what I would call an omelette question as each person has there own way of making it. Just throwing you some techniques that I have used in the past.
this is almost what I would do for reflections ON water.
I need reflections and sheen on solid objects.
Will just have to try and see
Thanks Rich.
Not a problem Tim, just remembered that for night shots, a lot of production companies will deliberatey wet an area. It makes for more vibrant night shots.
Its the same process for reflections on water as for street scenes, I use the blend modes a lot.
Some inspiration for you
Bladerunner
Black Rain
Dick Tracey
Batman
Zodiac
Fast and furious (the tokyo one)
However dont bother with Lawrence of Arabia strangely not enough rain in that one.
Many regards
Rich
Or is it better to shoot a wet street?
If you can choose I’d say it is definitely easier to make a convincing wet street when shooting than it is in post. At least some water or real wet street on foreground would make it easier just to mimic the rest.
But if you have to do it there are a lot of secondary things in addition those already mentioned. Sounds quite obvious, but everything is cleaner (no small trash or dust you’d usually add to scene) and has more saturation in colors - cars, trees (leaves) etc.
This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.