Create a text reflection in Photoshop

Published on March 1, 2022

Create a text reflection

In this blog I’ll show you how to create a text reflection in Adobe Photoshop!

Step 1: Create text

Create a new file. Select the horizontal type tool. Pick a color and font you like and type your text.

Select the move tool and press CTRL+T to free transform. Resize your text and pick the correct placement (it should be above the middle, there has to be room for the reflection to go below it).

Step 2: Text reflection

Select your text layer and press CTRL+J to duplicate this layer. Select the layer copy. Then navigate to ‘Edit > Transform > Flip vertical‘.

The text is now upside down. Select the move tool and place this text exactly below the other text (you can use your arrow keys to move it more precisely).

Add a layer mask to the text copy layer (the upside down text).

Select the gradient tool. Make sure the foreground color is black and the background color is white.

Select the foreground to background gradient. It should be black to white (because the foreground is black and the background is white).

Then select the linear gradient (mode: normal, opacity: 100%, deselect ‘reverse’, select ‘dither’ and ‘transparency’).

Make sure the layer mask is selected. Then drag from the bottom of the upside down text up.

If you don’t like the way it looks, press CTRL+Z to undo the last action and simply try it again. You can see that your layer mask now goes from black to white.

Lower the opacity of the text reflection layer (I lowered it to 75%, but you can use a different amount depending on the colors you used).

If you want to move the reflection, you can still do that. Select the move tool and the reflection layer and use the arrow keys to move it up or down. If you want to move both the text and the reflection, select both layers and move them with the move tool.

And that’s how you create a text reflection in Adobe Photoshop. You can find the result below!