how to make a reflection

this past summer I went to Sister Oregon for a quilt show.  you might remember some of the posts from that such as the town full of quilts.   but we also went to Smith rock.  The above picture is one of the pictures. 

well I came across a tutorial on how to make a reflection in photoshop.  thought by Rick Sammon an amazing photographer and teacher. So I gave it a try i did have to adapt them a little since I was using photoshop elements 6 but it worked really easy and quick too.

First I cropped out some of the trees and landscape. 

the rest is in the tutorial but basically: 

 I had to increase my canvas size the height only. 

use the marquee tool to create a copy of my image

file open new and paste

transform and flip the the photo

then use the move tool and add it to the increased canvas area of my original.

then I added a filter of ripple to soften the bottom section.

easy peasy. 

of course this created a discussion on what is real and what is not.  I am really torn still on "creating" in photoshop.  I don't do it often but if I do I am open about it.  not trying to pass off something that isn't how it really was.  because really there is no lake at smith rock that would ever create this image. 

now your turn create something