When you take a selfie, it’s usually mirrored because you took it with a front camera. This is only one example of many when you may want to flip an image to correct its orientation. As you’ll see in this article, Photoshop lets you flip an image, layer, or any specific part of a layer in the wanted direction.
In short, to flip an image in Photoshop, you need to choose the desired orientation option from the Image > Image Rotation menu. Similarly, to flip a layer, you need to choose the orientation option from the Edit > Transform menu. In both cases, available options are either Flip Horizontal or Flip Vertical, resulting in your image or layer being flipped horizontally or vertically.
I’ll show you step-by-step how to flip an image or layer through the following examples prepared for you.
How to flip an image in Photoshop
Flipping an image is a pretty simple task with just two steps involved. All you have to do is open the image you want to flip and then choose what direction you want to flip it to.
Step 1. Open the image you want to flip. You can drag and drop the image straight into the Photoshop window or choose File > Open and pick the image you want to flip.
Step 2. Go to Image > Image Rotation and choose one of two available options:
- Flip Canvas Horizontal – flips the image horizontally; you can think of it as switching the left and right sides of the image.
- Flip Canvas Vertical – flips the image vertically; you can think of it as switching the top and bottom parts of the image.
NOTE - To return the image to the original state, just undo the action by pressing the Ctrl+Z (Windows) or Command+Z (Mac) shortcut.
Here you can see the outcomes of flipping an image in all directions.
How to flip a layer in Photoshop
Flipping a layer is very similar to flipping an image. Only this time, you are dealing with a layer that doesn’t have to be an image. Instead, it can be text, shape, path, or something else. I’ll show you how to flip a layer containing text in this example.
Step 1. First, select the layer you want to flip in the Layers panel.
Step 2. Choose Edit > Transform and then pick in what direction you want to flip a layer. Available options are the same as before:
- Flip Horizontal
- Flip Vertical
NOTE - You can apply the mentioned method for flipping on any layer; the layer doesn’t have to be rasterized.
Here are the results of flipping a layer vertically and horizontally.
How to flip part of the layer in Photoshop
Sometimes you would want to flip only a specific part of a layer in Photoshop. Don’t worry, this is also an easy task to do. You have to use one of the selection tools, select the part you want to flip, and then flip it.
Once again, I’ll show you an example using the image of a guy skating. The goal is to flip only the guy and his skate while keeping the rest of the image in place.
Step 1. Choose the Rectangular Marquee Tool from the side menu and draw a selection box around the object you want to flip.
Step 2. Go to Edit > Transform and pick the flipping direction. You have Flip Horizontal and Flip Vertical options available.
TIP - Alternative method is to press Ctrl+T (Windows) / Command+T (Mac) while the selection is active. This will turn the selection to Free Transform mode. Then right-click on the object and choose Flip Horizontal or Flip Vertical from the menu.
You can see the results of flipping vertically and horizontally below.
Conclusion
Knowing how to flip an image in Photoshop can be very useful. Much can be accomplished in combination with some other techniques, like rotating or cropping a layer. It allows you to manipulate orientation and do mirroring and de-mirroring effects. You can create all kinds of abstract artworks if you play with flipping in creative ways.
Thanks for reading, and see you next time!
