Image Reflection with jQuery and MooTools

By  on  

Christina Ricci

One subtle detail that can make a big difference on any web design is the use of image reflections. Using them too often can become obnoxious but using reflections on large, "masthead" images is a classy enhancement. Unfortunately creating image reflections within your graphics application can be time-consuming, especially when an image can potentially change frequently. Luckily Christophe Beyls has created Reflection.js.

Reflection.js is a JavaScript utility available in both jQuery and MooTools that creates reflections for any images in a page. Reflection.js creates a new IMG element with special filters if the client is using IE -- if the client is not IE, Reflection.js creates a CANVAS element and constructs the reflection within the canvas.

The HTML

<img src="cricci-player.jpg" alt="Christina Ricci" class="reflect" />

Add the reflect CSS class to any image you'd like to reflect.

The MooTools JavaScript Usage

window.addEvent('domready',function() {
	var options = { height: 0.5 };
	$$('img.reflect').each(function(img) {
		img.reflect(options);
	});
});

The MooTools version of Reflection.js implements the reflect method to create reflections.

The jQuery JavaScript Usage

	document.ready(function() {
		var options = { opacity: 0.75 };
		$('.reflect').reflect(options);
	});

Much like MooTools method, you execute each element's reflect method.

Christophe's Reflection.js code is a great piece of work! Don't waste time making reflections in Photoshop -- use the power of JavaScript!

Recent Features

  • By
    CSS Animations Between Media Queries

    CSS animations are right up there with sliced bread. CSS animations are efficient because they can be hardware accelerated, they require no JavaScript overhead, and they are composed of very little CSS code. Quite often we add CSS transforms to elements via CSS during...

  • By
    CSS @supports

    Feature detection via JavaScript is a client side best practice and for all the right reasons, but unfortunately that same functionality hasn't been available within CSS.  What we end up doing is repeating the same properties multiple times with each browser prefix.  Yuck.  Another thing we...

Incredible Demos

  • By
    Drag and Drop MooTools File Uploads

    Honesty hour confession:  file uploading within the web browser sucks.  It just does.  Like the ugly SELECT element, the file input is almost unstylable and looks different on different platforms.  Add to those criticism the fact that we're all used to drag and drop operations...

  • By
    Optimize Your Links For Print Using CSS — Show The URL

    When moving around from page to page in your trusty browser, you get the benefit of hovering over links and viewing the link's target URL in the status bar. When it comes to page printouts, however, this obviously isn't an option. Most website printouts...

Discussion

  1. Haha! I was wondering where Christina had gone…

  2. @Chris the Developer: She’s never gone! :)

  3. Thx for the share, very useful script!
    Always wanted to know a possibility to do client-side reflections… ;)

  4. I agree with you that reflection.js is a great piece of code but… in my machine doesn’t work! :)
    I use mootools-1.2.4 via google api and other plugins.
    I found a solution, replace line 53:

    wrapper = new Element(($(img.parentNode).get("tag") == "a") ? "span" : "div").injectAfter(img).adopt(img, reflection);
    

    width:

    var parentNode = $(img.parentNode);
    if (parentNode != null) {
      wrapper = new Element((parentNode.get("tag") == "a") ? "span" : "div").injectAfter(img).adopt(img, reflection);
    }
    else {
      wrapper = new Element("div").injectAfter(img).adopt(img, reflection);
    }
    

    And… it seems to work! :)

    My two cents.
    Cheers.
    Strap

  5. I was really hoping this post would be “Introducing Scroll”

  6. Ah, I knew I had seen that script somewhere… when you mentioned Christophe Beyls, I knew I was right!

    Great sum up of the usage of the script. I personally prefer the demo provided by Christophe – more dynamic and such… though the muse is more hairy :D.

  7. nice post, great job, you made it come true. I think that’s what I am looking for.

    Your site is nice, too!

  8. Wow, didn’t know that it can be done coding. I was doing it in photoshop and stuff. Good tip, thanx

  9. @Nickolas Simard: Hairy muses FTL.

  10. abhay

    My client has said to me add refelection in about 300 images i know but i forgot it heopls meawesome it is so easy to understand thankyouuuuuuu very much.

Wrap your code in <pre class="{language}"></pre> tags, link to a GitHub gist, JSFiddle fiddle, or CodePen pen to embed!