Add a mirror effect to a photo

“Mirror effect” means different things to different people, and an example picture cannot tell you which one suits yours. So when a photo opens here, all four are drawn from it at once. Symmetry keeps one half and reflects it onto the other, so a face or a façade becomes perfectly balanced. Reflection casts a fading copy off an edge, so the subject seems to stand on a glossy floor or above still water. Kaleidoscope keeps one quarter and reflects it into the other three — or, in its wedge form, repeats a slice round a circle. Pair sets the photo beside its own mirror image in a single file.

Every one of them is built from reflections of the pixels you brought. The previews are not mock-ups: they come out of the same drawing code that writes the full-size file, at a smaller scale. Choose one and its controls open; the other three stay a click away.

1. 1Open a photo. Drop, pick or paste it. Four small versions appear at once, one per effect, each drawn from your own picture.
2. 2Pick the one that works. Symmetry reflects one half onto the other; Reflection casts a fading copy below; Kaleidoscope folds one quarter into four; Pair puts the photo beside its mirror.
3. 3Tune it. Each effect opens with its own controls — the mirror line and its feather, the reflection's gap, length and fade, the kaleidoscope's centre, the pair's gap and colour.
4. 4Save. PNG keeps transparent areas clear; JPEG fills them. The full-size file is drawn by the same code as the preview.

A 2000 × 1500 photo of a doorway opens and the four previews draw in well under a second on a laptop. Symmetry with the line at the centre gives a 2000 × 1500 file in which columns 1000 to 1999 are columns 999 down to 0, exactly. The default reflection — 40 % of the height, 45 % opacity at the join, fading to nothing — makes a 2000 × 2100 file: 1500 rows of picture plus 600 of reflection. The four-way kaleidoscope with its centre at 50 % gives a 2000 × 1500 pattern that tiles without a seam; Pair, side by side with no gap, gives 4000 × 1500.

• The effects work on the whole frame. There is no selecting a subject or masking a background; the mirror reflects everything on its side of the line.
• Wedges and ripples resample. Six- and eight-wedge kaleidoscopes and the water ripple shift pixels by fractions. The other effects copy pixels exactly.
• Writing reverses. Any lettering in the reflected part reads backwards. The notice under the picture says when it sees some.

Which mirror effect should I use?

Symmetry for faces, buildings and anything that should look balanced. Reflection for product shots and anything that should seem to stand on glass or water. Kaleidoscope for patterns and backgrounds. Pair when you want the photo and its mirror together, like a double portrait. The four previews are there so you can judge on your own picture, not on an example.

Is the camera's "mirror effect" the same thing?

Camera apps use the phrase for a live split-screen symmetry. The Symmetry effect here is that, applied to a photo you already have — with the line wherever you put it rather than fixed at the centre.

Do the effects lose quality?

Symmetry, the four-way and diagonal kaleidoscopes and Pair copy pixels without changing them. The reflection's fade changes transparency by design. The six- and eight-wedge kaleidoscopes and the water ripple turn or shift pixels by fractions, so they resample, and the controls say so.

Can I get a transparent background?

Yes. Reflection and Pair can leave their new areas clear; save as PNG or WebP to keep them. JPEG has no transparency and writes those areas white unless you pick another colour.