How to create reflections in Photoshop

This article was translated from Dutch with the help of AI. Read the original.

You can easily apply this reflection effect to a landscape or cityscape photo, but you can actually use it for anything, from people to products.

For a landscape photo, proceed as follows: select the Rectangular Marquee Tool (M) in the toolbar and select the area from the horizon line all the way to the top of the image.

Press Command-J (PC: Ctrl-J) to place this selected area on its own layer. Then press Command-T (PC: Ctrl-T) to activate Free Transform.

Right-click somewhere inside the selection and, in the contextual menu that appears, choose Flip Vertical to turn the image on this layer upside down. You can also do this via the menu: Edit, Transform, Flip Vertical.

Press the Return key (PC: Enter) to apply the transformation. Now switch to the Move Tool (V), hold down the Shift key (to keep things perfectly straight while dragging) and drag this flipped layer down until its top edge touches the horizon line in your original image. This creates a reflection.

You can optionally lower the opacity of the new layer with the reflection a little, so that the ripples become slightly visible again. You can also blur the layer using Gaussian Blur for a more natural effect.

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