Optical limiting measurements are carried out with the 3D polystyrene (PS) photonic crystals (PhCs) fabricated by vertical deposition method using the reflection Z-scan (RZ-scan) technique. Interestingly we found that nonlinear reflectance decreases up to 80% which leads to good optical limiting (OL) behavior for PS PhCs compared with the thin films prepared by spin coating. © 2011 American Institute of Physics.