Reflet 2.6 is a portable tool which can add a rippling lake reflection effect to your digital images, and export the results as an animated GIF or AVI file.

How successful this will be is largely dependent on the source photo, so take a moment to look at your options. We would start with a landscape shot, where adding a lake is going to make visual sense. Resize it to something small - 640 pixels wide at a maximum, ideally less - and you're ready to go.

Open your test image in Reflet and it adds a reflection. Click Options > Animation to animate this immediately with the default settings.

The "Images" box allows you to define how many frames will be included in the animation. Reducing this will cut the output file size, but image quality will suffer too; adjust the value to find the best compromise.

Other toolbar options allow you to set the reflection height and wave type ("Perspective" or "Regular"). We were happy with "90%" and "Perspective" for our test landscape images, but experiment to see what works for you.

The Options menu contains two further settings for wave type and speed. Again, the defaults worked well for us, but try each option to see how it affects your photo.

When you're happy, click File > Export, and the animation can be saved as an animated GIF or AVI file. The last option delivers huge files as it doesn't let you set a codec, but fortunately you can also export the animation as a sequence of BMP or JPG images, which allows you to create the final video with whatever other tool you like.