Video:Adobe Photoshop Text Reflection Effect

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Transcript:Adobe Photoshop Text Reflection Effect

Hi. I'm Isaac Brody for About.com Computing. Today I'll teach you how to add reflections to text in Photoshop.

I'll start by creating a new document by going to File, New. I'll select preset 800 X 600 to make things easy. And click, OK.

Text Reflection Background

First I'll start by making my background black. Hit the D key to set the foreground and background colors to default black and white. And then click and hold down the Gradient button on the left hand toolbar until you see Painbucket tool. Select Paint bucket and fill the screen black.

Now click on the switch foreground background color button on the lefthand toolbar to make the foreground color white.

Entering your Text

Now click on the horizontal type tool and click on the background. Type the word REFLECTIONS. If the type is too small, highlight the typed text and raise the size on the topbar. If you're not happy with the font you can also change it at this time. If the text isn't centered move it to the middle of the background.

Adjustment Layer

Now duplicate our reflection text layer by dragging the text layer to the create a new layer button on the layer pallete. We can't see the new layer because it's in the exact same spot as the first. Don't worry about that.

Resizing your Layer

Now go to Layer, Rasterize, and select Type. Now go to Edit, Free Transform to change the shape of the copy layer. A rectangle with points pops up over our rasterized text. Click the top middle point of the rectangle and drag it downward exaggerating it's shape a little. When you're satisfied hit Return.

Positioning your Text

Now you'll see that the copy text doesn't quite line up with the original text. Select the move tool on the left-hand toolbar and move the text up to match. You may need to use the zoomtool on the left-hand toolbar to get close and aid your matching. After you're finished matching zoom back out by double clicking the zoom tool.

Adding Reflection

Now go to Edit, Transform, and hit Perspective. We're going to change the perspective to imitate a reflection. Choose a point on the bottom left or right side of the rectangle and drag towards the sides of your screen.

When you're happy with the perspective change hit return to commit the changes.

Reflection Opacity

With the reflections copy layer selected lower the opacity in the layer palette to about 75 percent. That looks pretty good to me.

And that's how you create reflections with text. With a little practice you can use this method over pictures and for creating titles.

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