Basically, just be almost done with your photo, like right before you're about to make the photo blurred, which is before the lens correction thing when you flatten it.

So, start out with something like this, where you want a cigarette to have some smoke or somethin' like that. (this first picture is the finished picture because i can't be bothered to go all the way back to get one screenshot)

First, just make a new group and put an empty layer in it. Just make sure this group is at the very top of all your other layers.


Alright, here we go. First, select the pencil tool, which you can get by just right clicking on the brush tool and then selecting the pencil tool. Set the size of it to one, and the hardness to 100.


Now, click on that color palette thing in the bottom left corner, and make it completely white.


Time to get funky. Draw a single line straight up from the point of wherever you want it to come from. It doesn't have to be completely straight, and in fact, it's better if it isn't. Just make it a normal length, otherwise I'll force you to stare at poster_lightbounce 4 render for the whole time.


For this part, just switch to your smudge tool, and set the size to one or two (depends on your scene size, and the size of the smoke line) and the hardness to 100. Then, take your smudge brush, and make a zig zag motion like I've shown in the picture. Just get up really close to the area you're doing this in, and begin with clicking/dragging ON the white line, NOT outside of it.


Now, you're done with that. The easy part's next, and that's a change in your smudge tool. Just switch the size to like 50 or something like that, and turn down the strength to like 15, or 25. Basically, just make the size big and the strength low.


Just make a zig zag motion with the smudge tool like you did earlier, but just make it so it blurs it by dragging it a couple times, since the size is big enough.


Boom, done. You can also change the brush size of the pencil tool as well, but only use that when you feel like you have to. A really low pencil tool size is good for this.

so i might make a reflection guide sometime in the future, but I don't want to right now. here's a link to a youtube video that's basically a clear guide on how to make reflections on glasses, but it can work for almost anything else too: