Shattered Glass/Mirror Effect

[Souperintendent]

Hello,

I'm wondering if there is any way to get a shattered glass or mirror effect. I did an internet search and came up with outdated tutorials from 4-5 years ago. Is there any modern technique (or better yet, an effect plugin) that can make this effect?

Thanks.

[pdnnoob]

As always, context helps us help you a lot better.

There is no plugin for this, but I'm sure we (forumers) can come up with a better method that what is currently available.

Things to keep in mind:

1. When you shatter a mirror, the broken pieces no longer face the same direction. Some pieces may reflect the same object multiple times while other parts of the image may not be reflected anymore. Therefore, you cannot simply cut and move some parts of the image to get a realistic effect.

2. The edges of each piece will not be very reflective anymore because of the irregularities in the glass.

3. It is very time-consuming to draw your own shattered glass unless you decide to take what I call the "lasso scribble" route (which, in my opinion, makes for a rather unrealistic shatter). I would highly recommend searching for a stock photo or photoshop brush to use as an overlay and a guide. This would also solve point #2 as well.

4. If you are simply creating shattered glass, an overlay is probably all you need. Shattered mirrors distort the reflection a lot, but the distortion from shattered glass is hardly visible.

[avim1968]

Hi

I using a number of steps to get shatter pieces and cracks of glass or mirror or any other ..

I add the picture to shatter to the PDN.

then I add a picture of sea waves or water or any other wavy and shiny picture.

then i select all and apply a Mosaic effect. (make sure that the foreground color is NOT a part of the picture, basically white works most of the time)

I play with the settings until I get the right size,shape and number of broken pieces and "cracks" i want.

(at this step you can apply other effects to change the cracks / pieces shapes/look like Liquify from pyrochild )

then I duplicate the layer and use the hue/saturation to make it gray scale. to be used later.

I choose the magic wand selection tool and select ALL and only the cracks in between my original Mosaic .

i copy and cracks to a new layer but I don't deselect it yet.

I duplicate the picture to shatter and move it to the top layer.

since the selection is on, when I press DELETE it deletes the cracks area from the picture .

now i have my original pictures in pieces.

going back to the Gray copy of the Mosaic i move it to the top , then bland it down with the use of

multiply to get the shiny and dark pieces (like pdnnoob said)

(can also be used with Alpha Mask if saved before)

from this step you can go all the way and move the pieces around, and/or add glow/lights/shadows effects and/or other

effects to make the pieces with more differences between them.

Avi

p.s.

using this you can even make other great effects to images.

Edited September 15, 2012 by avim1968