Water Reflection (Final)

Section two: creating a water surface.

First, we have to make a "flat" reflection which we will distort later with the displace filter. In this example, we will treat the landscape as a single background object. This only works if the background is very distant.

Here's my huge beautiful image... mine??? Lol..

Hit it to enlarge!

Determine where the horizon should be. Select everything above this line and copy it to a new layer. This will be the reflection layer. Extend the canvas downwards to make room for the reflection. Flip vertical and move the layer down to mirror it with the background. Near the horizon, almost 100% of the light is reflected of a water surface. At higher angles, the reflection component becomes smaller so you can see the color of the water itself. The color will be dark blue or turquoise if the water is clear. Of course, you can make any liquid you want by using another color. (Here I made it Red)

Create a new layer below the reflection layer and link it to the reflection layer. Fill the area behind the reflection with the desired color. (You can adjust it later with Hue/Saturation.) Add a layer mask to the reflection layer. Draw a white to black gradient down from the horizon to show the lower part of the color layer.

Now we can add some wind. (Remember about this trick?) Before applying the displacement map, we will use motion blur to simulate the effect of the waves in the distance. The blur distance depends on the size of the image and the wind effect you want to create.

Select the reflection layer and Ctrl+click the layer mask to make a gradient selection. Lock the transparent pixels by clicking the little checkerboard icon in the layers palette.

Use Transform to scale the reflection layer to 400% in both directions. Ctrl + click on the reflection layer thumbnail to make the selection. Go to Filter > Distort > Displace ... Enter the amount of displacement. The horizontal scale value should be about 50% of the vertical scale. Also select Stretch To Fit and Repeat Edge Pixels . Click OK . Find the displacement map on your computer and click open to apply it. Deselect and use Transform to scale back to 25% .

Now it really looks like water. Notice that the layer mask is also distorted because it is linked to the layer. This causes the reflectivity to change with the angle of the surface. We will make some final adjustments to complete the image. Select the layer mask, go to Levels and change the white output level to about 240 to make the surface slightly transparent near the horizon. If needed, use the other sliders to further adjust the reflectivity. Finally, cut away the edges of the image if the repeated edge pixels are noticeable.

And there you go kids! Another fun Photoshop tutorial and a few more tools you’ve now got a little experience with. Great Job!

Samples!!!

Related Topics :

Air Brush Style

Vektor with Photoshop

Menu Navigation

Abstract Background

Rain Effect

Matrix Effect

Retouching Image

Transparent Image

Other secrets here (Image Gallery)!