Creating wet reflective surface

[Jim Arco]

A “wet and reflective” look is probably going to require more creativity and judgment than can be coded into a software plug-in.

When something is wet, it appears to change color and brightness depending on the material and the surface finish. For instance, masonry or wood usually get darker. However, the moisture on the surface also reflects the light sources in the scene. In your example, the reflections show up as diffused vertical bars or stripes similar in color to the light sources in the scene. (Had the camera angle been different, the reflections would be at a different angle.) In other scenes, you’d want to add ‘puddles’ to large areas of pavement, a blue haze for large open backlighted areas, or ‘glistening drops’ on grass and leaves to create an illusion of a recent rain.

I would use curves on a masked layer to create brighter or darker “wet” surfaces, and also to change their color to create a wet look.

Jim