How to artificially generate text reflection on water surface
In this Tutorial you will know how to artificially generate the text reflection on surface of a water body using Photoshop tools
Step 1: open any photograph on your Photoshop Canvas containing any water body such as sea or a photo of a lake.

Step 2: Next make a duplicate copy of the background; we will make a duplicate copy so that if we make any mistake while doing this then we have some thing to start a fresh from and secondly the Background Layer is locked so we cannot make any manipulations in this layer.


Step 3: Select the Text Tool from the Tool bar as shownunder.

Step 4: Type any text over the water body in the Photograph.

Step 5: Select the Rasterize Type option as shown under by right clicking on the Text Layer in the Palette.

Step 6: Make a copy of the Text Layer as done in Step 2.

Step 7: Select the Text Copy Layer and Select the Flip Vertical Option from the transform submenu in the Edit Menu to make a vertically inverse copy of this text.


Step 8: Now we will merge the copy of the text with the water by selecting the Distort option from the Transform submenu in the Edit Menu and then decreasing the height of the copy.


Step 9: We will now add Ripple to the reflection of the text to make it look original.

Set the Amount to 290% in the Ripple Dialog Box.


Step 10: Select the Motion Blur option from the Filter Menu and blur the reflection by some amount.

Set the Distance to 15 pixels and the angle to 2 degree in the dialog box.


Step 11: Decrease the Opacity to give the reflection a realistic look.

The Final outcome is given below.











April 9th, 2009 at 2:31 am
Blogs like this is what we blog addicts are looking for, will visit often.
February 23rd, 2010 at 11:48 am
The text effect doesn’t look nice in my opinion
July 6th, 2010 at 1:24 pm
Thanks for the tip. I’ve been messing around trying to get this effect for a while now.
October 11th, 2010 at 3:36 pm
An excellent tutorial that clearly explains every step..I wish all blogs were this good! thanks
December 8th, 2010 at 2:21 am
Nice tutorial! Im not so big on the text effect either.