Shadow with reflection behind an objet

good question if you want reflection then maybe Dimension is what you need to make your Psd images?

• Shadow = when a light hits an object and is blocked i.e, dirt simple and most any 3D software can make shadows

• reflextion = when light hits and object and bounces back, the key here is the light itself is not as important as what material it hit... stone, paper, plastic, metal and the glass have zero to 100% reflextion \ metal

Photoshop is the only software I know that actually has both metal and reflextion because its older and in theory you could have a mat surface which reflexs but its more or less the same slider

distance and light do affect how shiny the surface is or if the reflextion is clear | out of focus but they don't make as much difference

• Tranlucence = when light goes into an object and changes dirrection as different to opacity which is just show or hide without change of dirrection... this takes the most time to rendor and as a Mac users you should prob ignore it but Dave and I both have it in our images

models and Adobe Stock

p.s, 3D vs real life

when the client says hay Dave can you make the bottle float in the air or Graham can the bottle be bigger and add bubbles is where 3D has the edge. yes we can add wires or have a guys drop power into the bottle... we can even send to China for a new bottle but that takes time

however ime humans have this little toggle inside their mind that says yuck when they see an image which isn't possible, no girl is that thin and no surface is so clean so little touches like dust or a drop a rain \ water can really help

Davescm, I'm curious about the colored contents of the bottle. Does the bottle contain an inner colored transparent object? Or is the inner surface of the glass colored differently from the outer surface?

Very nice @davescm 

Perhaps you could post that blender file in case Melanie wishes to customise it?

You might want to consider making a 3D model and rendering in a 3D application with a render engine that supports caustics.

This is Blender 3D but using the LuxCore render engine rather than the native Cycles or Eevee engines. The reflective and refractive caustics are taken care of in the render.

Dave

Yes, trying to get a photo realistic 3D image with a 2D paint program is difficult and very time consuming.

Here's the amazing Unmesh Dinda showing how to deal with transparency and lighting with PS

which is sort of the process that you might use.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uX_iinoB1fA

Is this the sort of process you were thinking of?

https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/questions/106014/photoshop-how-to-make-shadow-more-realistic

I think that, rather than a drop shadow, it's that he duplicated the main image layer, reduced the opacity, and placed it behind, then applied the drop shadow to the duped layer. The reflection is only in the image itself. A drop shadow will never have a reflection in it.