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When photographic prints are given a matt or glossy finish, it’s all down to the photo paper’s reflectance. But now and Sylvia Pont from in the Netherlands have managed to make a digital image look glossy without changing its reflectance.. They used an image from the computer model of a fractal that had a matt finish. When the depth value in the model was changed, as well as the direction of light hitting it, the 2D surface looked like it had a glossy finish.

“A possible explanation is that highlights are created where you would normally expect them to be if the surface was glossy,” says Wijntjes.

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