Quick Tip #15 Photoshop Text Reflection

In This quick tip we show you how to make a quick text reflection with the transform tool and some feathering. Leave a comment and let me know what you think!

14 Responses to “Quick Tip #15 Photoshop Text Reflection”

John McMullen says:

Hmm… personally I’d use a mask and gradient tool. I understand you’re trying to do this quick, but it only takes a second more and you can edit it after.

Thanks for taking the time with the video though.

February 5th, 2009 at 6:34 am

Daryl Walker-Smith says:

Nice tip Niki, but I tend to use a gradient layer mask on the reflection layer (less destructive) )

February 5th, 2009 at 6:35 am

Yeah, I’m going to have to agree with John and Daryl when dealing with text. Rasterizing text is pretty taboo in the PS world. Great tip if it were something other then text though. Instead of feathering a selection tool I normally just pick an eraser, something large like 300, hold down shift and run it across the bottom of the layer and then adjust the opacity as you did.

Thanks for this.

February 5th, 2009 at 7:11 am

Niki says:

Ah yeah masking would probably be better, but you have to rasterize the text to be able to transform it with the perspective tool.

Thanks for the comments guys!

February 5th, 2009 at 8:19 am

Simon Douglas says:

I have to say that I agree with both @John McMullen & @Daryl Walker-Smith in using a mask and gradient tool, especially with the Masks panel in CS4.

Nice tip anyway, thanks Niki

February 5th, 2009 at 8:56 am

meredith says:

well i liked it.

February 5th, 2009 at 11:05 am

joyoge designers' bookmark says:

useful tip thanks

February 5th, 2009 at 1:41 pm

Daryl Walker-Smith says:

Hi Niki, you’re comment about rasterizing text to use the perspective tool got me a thinking )

A really simple solution would be to convert the text into a smart object before you duplicate it.

Then once you’ve created your duplicate smart object layer for the reflection you can apply a gradient mask.

You’re then able to use the perspective transform tool on both smart objects and if you need to edit the text at all you open the smart object – make the edits and voila both the text and its reflection are updated.

Hope that’s useful )

February 6th, 2009 at 3:26 am