making reflections

I personally love making reflections of things on my graphics. It adds a new dimension to the piece which makes it much more cooler to me.

I’m going to be reflecting text, but this technique will work for anything.

Step 1) Open up a new document. Any size is suitable. I think the reflections look best and are most visible on darker backgrounds, so I’m going to fill my document with black.

Step 2) Select your text tool, and type in whatever you’d like on the document. I always like to add an outer glow to mine, you can do this by going to Layer > Layer Style > Outer Glow. In your layers palette, duplicate the text layer you just made. To do this, press CTRL + J.

Step 3) Next, press V to select your move tool. When you have it selected, you should see some nodes (small squares) on the outside of your text layer like the image below. When you see these, click on any one. If you do not see any nodes at all, then you’ll need to change some of your settings. Press M for the move tool, then at the top, look at your options. There should be a check box that says “Show Transform Controls“, if it is unchecked, then check the box.

Step 4) After you’ve clicked on a node, the outside of the box should’ve changed from a dotted lined box into a solid lined box. When you see this, right click and go to ‘Flip Vertical’. After you’ve flipped it, position the layer so that it’s right below you’re main text layer. When you’ve finished this, double click on the box to finalize the positioning. You should now have something like this:

Step 5) In your layers palette, you’ll need to change the opacity of the duplicated text layer. I usually change it to somewhere between 25%-35%, depending on how dark your background is.

Step 6) You’ll now need to add a blur to your layer. At the top of the window, go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur. I usually set the blurriness to 1 or 2. You should now have something like this:

Step 7) Press V to select your move tool again, and click on one of the nodes one more time. This time you’ll have to move one of them. While clicking and holding on the bottom center node, move it up about 1/3 of the way. After that, you’re all done! This is my ending result:

Remember to play around with some of the opacities and blurriness of the layers to come out with results to fit your personal style! Enjoy!