Lab Activity 2 Photoshop Water Reflection
Lab Activity 2 Photoshop Water Reflection
In this Photoshop photo effects tutorial, we're going to learn how to easily add a realistic water reflection to any photo. It's a very
easy effect to create and you can add it to any photo you like, although it tends to work best with images that don't already contain
water in them.
We'll be using a simple filter and a displacement map to create the water ripple effect, and a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer to give
our water a little color.
Here's the photo that I'll be working with throughout this tutorial
And here's what our image is going to look like after adding the water reflection :
We need to duplicate the Background layer, and we can do that using the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+J (Win) / Command+J (Mac).
Now when I look in my Layers palette now, I can see that I now have two layers - my original Background layer on the bottom and a
new layer, "Layer 1", above it which is my duplicate:
We're going to add our water reflection below the image, so let's add some canvas space to the bottom of our document to make
room for our reflection. To do that, go up to the Image menu at the top of the screen and choose Canvas Size. This will bring up
Photoshop's "Canvas Size" dialog box. The easiest thing to do here is to add twice as much canvas space as what we currently
have, but we only want it to appear at the bottom of the document, not above it or on either side, so we need to tell Photoshop
exactly where we want this extra canvas space to go.
First, enter 100 for the Height and set the measurement to percent, as circled in red below. Leave the Width option set to 0. Then
make sure the Relative option is checked, which tells Photoshop to give us 100% more canvas space than what we already have.
Below the "Relative" option is a 3x3 grid of squares. This is where we tell Photoshop where we want to place our additional canvas
space. Click inside the square in the middle of the top row (again as circled below). This tells Photoshop not to place any of the
extra canvas space above the document and instead to place all of it at the bottom:
Click OK to exit out of the dialog box, and Photoshop will add the extra canvas space to the bottom of the image:
Go to Edit > Transform > Flip Vertical to flip the image on the top layer upside down.
We need the flipped image to be at the bottom of the document, so grab your Move Tool from the Tools palette, or press V on your
keyboard for the shortcut:
Then, with the Move Tool selected, click inside the document and drag the flipped image down to the bottom until the top of it is
lined up with the bottom of the original image above it. Hold down Shift as you drag to make sure you drag down in a straight line:
Now that we have our flipped image in place, we can begin to create our water ripple effect. First, we need to add a new blank layer
at the top of the Layers palette, so with "Layer 1" still selected, click on the New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette:
We're going to fill our new blank layer with white. If white is not currently your Background color, press D on your keyboard, which
will reset Photoshop's Foreground and Background colors, making black your Foreground color and white your Background color.
Then use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Backspace (Win) / Command+Delete (Mac) to fill the new layer with the Background color
(white). Your document will be filled with solid white.
Step 7: Apply The "Halftone Pattern" Filter To Create Black And White Horizontal Lines
Go up to the Filter menu at the top of the screen, choose Sketch, and then choose Halftone Pattern. This brings up Photoshop's
Filter Gallery (in Photoshop CS and higher) set to the "Halftone Pattern" filter options on the right, with a large preview of the effect
on the left. We're going to use this filter to add a series of black and white horizontal lines to the image. These lines are going to
become our water ripples . The more lines we have, the more ripples we'll have. First, we want to make sure we're creating lines
and not dots or circles, so set the Pattern Type option to Lines. We control the number of lines by adjusting the Size option. Lower
values give us more lines, since we're lowering the size of each line, and higher values give us fewer but thicker lines. I'm going to
set my Size value to 7, which I think works best for my image. You may want to experiment with this value on your own.
The Contrast option below it determines how sharp the edges of the lines are. Lower values give you softer lines, white higher
values give you hard edge lines. Set this value all the way to 50 to give your lines sharp edges. We're going to soften them
ourselves with the Gaussian Blur filter in a moment:
Adjust the Halftone Pattern filter options to create a series of black and white lines through the image.
Click OK when you're done to exit out of the dialog box, and Photoshop will fill the image from top to bottom with your black and
white lines:
Before we can use our black and white lines as water ripples , we need to smooth them out and create nice, smooth transitions
between them. To do that, go up to the Filter menu once again, choose Blur, and then choose Gaussian Blur, which brings up the
"Gaussian Blur" dialog box. Keep an eye on your image and drag the slider at the bottom of the dialog box to increase
the Radiusvalue until the lines have a very soft edge to them. I'm using a small image for this tutorial, so for me, a Radius value of
about 4 pixels works well. If you're using a larger, high resolution image, you'll need to set yours to a higher value:
Use the Gaussian Blur filter to smooth out the edges of the lines.
Click OK to exit out of the dialog box and apply the blur to the lines.
Use the Gaussian Blur filter to smooth out the edges of the lines.
Set the "Document" option in the "Duplicate Layer" dialog box to "New".
Click OK to exit out of the dialog box, and your layer will open up in a new document on the screen.
Choose "Yes" when Photoshop asks if you want to save the document before closing it.
Photoshop will bring up the Save As dialog box. You can name your new document anything you like. I'm going to name mine
"water-ripples". Make sure you save it as a Photoshop .PSD file, since those are the only files that Photoshop can use as a
displacement map. You'll probably want to save the document to your Desktop, since we'll need to find it again in a moment.
Click and drag the lines layer ("Layer 2") onto the Trash Bin at the bottom of the Layers palette to delete it.
Before we can add use our displacement map, we need to merge our two image layers onto a new layer above them. To do that,
with "Layer 1" selected, use the keyboard shortcut Shift+Ctrl+Alt+E (Win) / Shift+Command+Option+E (Mac). Nothing will appear
to have happened in the document, but if we look in the Layers palette, we can see that both layers have been merged onto a new
layer at the top:
Both layers are now merged onto a new layer, "Layer 2".
Step 13: Use The “Displace” Filter To Create The Water Ripples
We're ready to create our water ripples using the displacement map we just created. With the new merged layer selected in the
Layers palette, go back up to the Filter menu at the top of the screen, choose Distort and then choose Displace .
This brings up Photoshop's "Displace" filter dialog box. This is where we determine the strength of our ripple effect, and we do that
with the Horizontal Scale option at the top. I'm going to set mine to a value of 4, which will give me a realistic ripple effect. You may
want to experiment with this value with your own image. Setting it too high though will create too much of a horizontal distortion and
you'll lose the realism.
We don't need any vertical distortion to create our effect, so set the Vertical Scale option to 0. Also, make sure that Stretch To
Fitand Repeat Edge Pixels are selected:
Go to Filter > Distort > Displace to bring up the Displace dialog box.
The image after applying our displacement map with the "Displace" filter.
"Right-click" (Win) / "Control-click" (Mac) directly on Layer 1's thumbnail in the Layers palette to place a selection around the flipped
image.
Click on the "Layer Mask" icon to add a layer mask to the merged layer at the top of the Layers palette.
Photoshop will add a layer mask to the merged layer, and because we had a selection around the bottom half of our document
when we added the layer mask, only the bottom half of the merged layer remains visible. The top half becomes hidden from view,
removing the unwanted water ripples from that part of the image:
The ripple effect is now hidden from the top half of the image after applying the layer mask.
We're almost done. Let's finish things off by adding a hint of color to the water, which we'll do next.
Step 15: Apply The “Gaussian Blur” Filter To The Layer Mask
Before we add our finishing touch by colorizing the water , let's soften the edge of the layer mask a little so there isn't such a harsh
dividing line between the image on top and the water below. We'll use the Gaussian Blur filter for that, and since we want to apply it
to the layer mask, we'll need to first select the mask. We can do that by clicking on the layer mask thumbnail in the Layers palette:
You can tell that the layer mask is now selected by the white highlight box around its thumbnail. We're going to apply the Gaussian
Blur filter to the mask, so go back up to the Filter menu, select Blur once again, and then select Gaussian Blur. When the dialog
box appears, simply click OK to apply the same Radius value we used previously.
Hold down "Alt" (Win) / "Option" (Mac), click on the "New Adjustment Layer" icon, then drag your mouse to "Hue/Saturation" to
select it.
By holding down "Alt/Option", this tells Photoshop to bring up the New Layer dialog box before adding the adjustment layer. Select
the Use Previous Layer To Create Clipping Mask option by clicking inside the checkbox to the left of it:
Select the "Use Previous Layer To Create Clipping Mask" option in the "New Layer" dialog box.
This will bring up the Hue/Saturation dialog box. We want to colorize our water, so the first thing we want to do here is select
theColorize option in the bottom right corner. Then select the color you want your water to be by dragging the Hue slider at the top.
I'm going to drag my slider to the right to a value of about 218, which I think is a good color for my water :
Click OK to exit out of the dialog box , and you'll see that your water on the bottom has now been colorized, but the color is much
too strong at the moment.
Lower the opacity of the adjustment layer until the water has only a hint of color to it.
Once you've lowered the opacity of the adjustment layer to reduce the color intensity of the water , you're done!
Here once again is my original image for comparison:
Just for fun, here's another example of the exact same effect applied to a different image. The only thing I changed here was that I
only added half as much canvas space below the original image (I set the "Height" value in the Canvas Size dialog box to 50%
instead of 100%). Everything else was done exactly the same way: