In this letter, we analyze the effects of light intensity on reflective ghost imaging with thermal source. We find that the brightness of reflective ghost image can be changed by modulating the light intensity of the source and the splitting ratio of the beam splitter. The signal-to-noise ratio will be improved by increasing the light intensity of the source. More important, we can obtain the reflective ghost image with high image quality by adopting a low light intensity signal beam and a high light intensity reference beam, which is better than the classical optical imaging, because it can reduce the effects of light on the object.