Help with moon reflection

[Mr.Jalapeno]

Hi!
What a great forum. I've been following the "Retouching" forum over at DPReview, and this was a natural progression.
Well, right off the bat I could use a hand. How can I make a natural looking reflection of the moon on the water in this double exposure using Elements? I really appreciate any tips or tuts.
Thanks!!
http://www.pbase.com/image/8258050.jpg

[dcarr]

Hi Mr.J
I'm not too good on reflections but what about pasting the moon, set the layer to overlay or soft light and playing with the different blurring filters. I'm sure someone else will have a surefire solution but maybe this will give you a start until then.
Debbie

[jeaniesa]

Hi Mr. Jalapeno - welcome to RetouchPro!

First an "admin" request: If you can upload your pictures to this site using the "Attach file" field towards the bottom of the screen when writing your post, then it will be much easier for others to follow these threads months/years from now. Yes, you're limited to 100KB, but photos posted on other websites so often disappear after the poster has gotten the feedback they need - and then when others find this thread hoping to find an answer to a similar problem, it's often difficult to figure out what the thread was referring to.

Now, on to your question. One thing that I find curious about this picture is that the buildings themselves do not seem to be reflected in the water. It appears that there are lights on a bridge which shine out over the water, but the buildings themselves are not reflected. I thought that perhaps the building reflections would help me figure out where to place to moon refelction in the water. So, I'm wondering if the reflection of the moon really needs to be added?

I did play around with trying to create a moon reflection, but didn't come up with anything that looked natural to me. I think you would really need to distort the moon for a reflection, but I can't make it look right. Perhaps if I could find a picture of a moon reflected on water I'd have a better idea of what I'm trying to create. My mind just isn't seeing it at this point. But, I wonder if that's because it's simply not needed?

Jeanie

[jeaniesa]

OK, I went looking for pictures of moon reflections. Here is an actual photo (not a great one, but at least you can see what an actual reflection looks like): http://www.photolib.noaa.gov/corps/corp1734.htm

And I found a couple of other pages with paintings of moon reflections that looks realistic to me (and plenty that did NOT look realistic ):

http://www.englishlandscapepaintings.co.uk/moon%20reflectionsl.htm

http://www.tabora.com/Reflections%20of%20a%20Tropical%20Moon.htm

As you can see from these images, the moon reflection is quite elongated and not a reflection of the moon itself, but rather the light coming from it. It tends to be reflected in the tips of water ripples and waves.

Now, how this might actually be created in your photo, I'm not sure. But, it helps explain why I couldn't come up with anything realistic - b/c I was trying to just distort the shape of the moon and it looked awful!

Jeanie

[Mr.Jalapeno]

Thanks a lot for your time and effort, Jeanie!
I figured that this may have been a lost cause, but you never know.
Which foothills do you live in?
Thanks again!!

[jeaniesa]

Which foothills do you live in?

Northern Front Range - just west of Fort Collins.

Jeanie

[LQQKER]

The picture was low resolution, so it is difficult to be very precise with an example. Using Flaming pears "flood" filter will give you a refection. In order to have more reflection, you'd have to move the moon closer to the horizon for the correct perspective.

[Mr.Jalapeno]

LQQKER,
Thank you very much!
This is exactly the effect I was looking for. I have a set of Flaming Pear filters (incl.Flood) and had completely forgotten about it.
I really appreciate everyones time and effort here.
What a great forum!