Written By Steve Patterson

In this Photoshop tutorial, we're going to look at how to create a mirror image effect with a photo, turning the right half of the image into a mirror reflection of the left half. You've probably seen this effect used everywhere, especially in movie posters or album covers, and as with many of Photoshop's classic and most popular photo effects, it's very easy to create.

Here's the image I'll be using for this tutorial:

Here's how it will look when we're done:

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Let's get started!

Step 1: Create A New Blank Document

Rather than working directly on the photo itself, let's start things off by creating a new blank document. This will allow us to create our effect at any size we need rather than trying to work within the dimensions of the photo itself. Go up to the File menu at the top of the screen and choose New, or simply press the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+N (Win) / Command+N (Mac). Either way brings up Photoshop's New Document dialog box. Enter in the dimensions you need for your effect. For this tutorial, I'm going to enter in a standard size of 6 inches for the Width and 4 inches for the Height, but of course you can enter whatever dimensions you need. For the Resolution, I'll enter 240 pixels/inch, which should give me professional quality print results if I decide to print the image later. The most commonly accepted resolution for professional print results is 300 pixels/inch, but you'll often find that you can get away with less than that without any noticeably loss in quality. I typically use 240 pixels/inch with my images:

Click OK when you're done to exit out of the dialog box. A new blank document will appear on your screen.

Step 2: Select And Copy The Photo

Switch over to the document window that contains the photo you're working with. We need to move the photo into our new blank document. There's a couple of ways we can do this, but we'll use the classic "copy and paste" method. First, we need to select the entire photo. Go up to the Select menu at the top of the screen and choose All, or press the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+A (Win) / Command+A (Mac). This places a selection outline (also known as "marching ants") around the entire image in the document window:

With the entire photo now selected, go up to the Edit menu and choose Copy, or press Ctrl+C (Win) / Command+C (Mac) for the shortcut. This places the entire image temporarily into your computer's memory:

Step 3: Paste The Photo Into The New Document

Switch back over to your new blank document. We're going to paste the photo into it. To do that, go back up to the Edit menu and this time, choose Paste. Or press the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+V (Win) / Command+V (Mac):

Photoshop will paste the photo directly into the new document:

If we look in the Layers palette for the new document, we can see that our photo has been placed on its own layer above the Background layer. Photoshop has automatically named the layer "Layer 1":

You can close out of the original photo's document window at this point, since we no longer need to have it open.

Step 4: Resize And Reposition The Photo Inside The Document If Needed

You'll probably find that the photo doesn't fit perfectly inside the new document. In my case, the photo is too big and part of it is extending out beyond the document's visible area. We'll need to resize it, and for that, we can use Photoshop's Free Transform command. Go up to the Edit menu and choose Free Transform, or press the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+T (Win) / Command+T (Mac):

Either way brings up the Free Transform box and handles around the image. Unfortunately, since part of my photo is extending out beyond the document's visible area, I can't see all of the Free Transform handles. To fix that, I'll simply go up to the View menu at the top of the screen and choose Fit on Screen. I could also select the same option with the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+0 (Win) / Command+0 (Mac):

The Fit on Screen command zooms the image out far enough so that everything, including the Free Transform handles, are now visible inside the document window. To resize the image, hold down your Shift key, then click and drag any of the corner handles inward until you have as much of the image as you need inside the visible area. Holding down the Shift key as you drag constrains the aspect ratio of the image so you don't accidentally distort the shape of it. In my case, I'm going to click on the handle in the bottom right corner and drag it inward until the bottom of the photo lines up with the bottom of the visible area:

You can also move the image as needed to reposition it by clicking anywhere inside the Free Transform box and dragging the image around. Just don't click on the small target symbol in the center of the Free Transform box, otherwise you'll move the target symbol, not the image. When you're done, press Enter (Win) / Return (Mac) to accept the changes and exit out of the Free Transform command.

To zoom the image back in so it once again fills up the entire document window, simply choose Fit on Screen again from the View menu just as we did a moment ago. You can also select Actual Pixels from the View menu, which will zoom the image to a full 100%. The keyboard shortcut for Actual Pixels is Ctrl+Alt+0 (Win) / Command+Option+0 (Mac).

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