How to Reflect an Object in Illustrator

Creating reflections should be a standard technique in the digital artist's repertoire of. Artists have been creating reflected images in Photoshop since its early releases, but with a little ingenuity, Illustrator can be an equally useful digital effects tool.

Instructions

1. Open a new document in Illustrator. Make sure the layers palette is open so you can rearrange the elements from top to bottom.

2. Add two objects to your document, the object you want to reflect and the reflecting surface. If you want to experiment, you can drag objects from the symbols palette to experiment.

3. Duplicate the reflecting object. You can copy and paste using the clipboard, or you can drag the layer to the layer palette's new layer icon. The copy will appear on a new layer.

4. Flip your copy. If you want the object to reflect in a mirror, flip horizontally. If you want it to reflect from above (for instance, over water,) flip vertically.

5. Position the objects to make the reflection look realistic. You may have to skew or distort the copy slightly to get the correct perspective.

6. Increase the reflected object's (the copy's) transparency until it begins to look like a reflection. You can drag the opacity slider in the transparency palette or type the values in directly. Experiment with the palette blend settings to see if you can improve on the effect.

7. Add any additional effects to enhance the realism. Use a ripple effect to make a surface look like water, or add highlights to create the illusion of a window or mirror.

Tips & Warnings

• Study lighting to learn about reflective surfaces. Reflections appear different in windows, on water, and on dark surfaces.

• Positioning is as important as lighting and transparency in creating realistic reflections. As you improve you can add additional reflections from different angles.