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Still More Photoshop Effects with Clouds  - or

Photoshop Clouds and Difference Clouds Filters - Making Water

category: graphics, digital photography and image editing

Photoshop's Clouds filter creates a fill of random haze between the foreground and background colors using Perlin-based fractal noise resembling natural clouds. The Difference Clouds Filter creates a cumulative effect exactly like duplicating the Clouds Results layer and applying the Difference Blend mode. OK, we've made a passing cloud in the foreground of a mountain scene and created a storm with lightning in the same scene using these filters; this time we're going to set Buckingham Palace's famous Changing of the Guard under water.

Open a new document with a white background and set the size and resolution according to your underwater subject. In my case, this was a scan 2245 x 1566 px with a resolution of 600 ppi. Start by pressing Ctrl+J to duplicate the background layer, and then D to set the default colors of black and white. Now bring up our old friend the Clouds filter by choosing Filter, Render, and Clouds. Then swap the default colors to white over black, and choose Filter, Sketch, Bas Relief; set lighting to From the Bottom, and play with the Detail and Smoothness sliders until you get a nice surface of the water effect, probably somewhere between two and five.

Give some perspective to the surface of the water by choosing Edit, Transform, and Perspective, and dragging the top a third or so wider than the canvas and the bottom about a third narrower. Then, with Transform still active, choose Scale from the Transform menu and push the bottom of the water surface layer upwards a little. Watch how the ripples distort as you compress them, and then pick a good time to stop. Now, using the Move Tool, drag your soon-to-be-under-water subject into the document from its own file, and place it where you want it in the water, setting the Layer's Blend Mode to Multiply. Return to the ripples layer, press Q to enter the Quick Mask Mode, select the Gradient Tool, and the black to white gradient from the Options Bar. Hold the Shift key, forcing a straight line, and drag from the bottom to select where the surface of the water begins above your subject. The rubylith overlay will show you what you're covering with your gradient. Drag until the surface area you like is the only area not covered by red, press Ctrl+I to invert the selection, press Q to toggle out of Quick Mask Mode, and press Backspace to delete the unwanted ripples. Press Ctrl+D to deselect, and, finally, set the layer to Linear Burn.

Looking at the Layers Palette from top to bottom, you should have your subject, the layer with the Blend Mode set to Mutiply, the ripples layer set to Linear Burn, and a white background. Let's color the water; duplicate the Background layer, fill it with black, create a new layer at the top, above your subject, fill it with RGB 5,47,89, and set the blend mode to Hard Light. Play with the opacity of these two new layers until you like the murky color.

Now let's light the subject from above; duplicate the ripples layer, drag it immediately above the subject layer, and, with the Eliptical Marquee tool, draw an area on the surface where light will enter. Press Q to enter the Quick Mask Mode; choose Filter, Blur, and Gaussian Blur; blur the mask about once again the size of the original marquee; press Ctrl+I to invert the mask; Q to exit Quick Mask Mode; and Backspace to delete the unwanted areas of the new light layer. Press Ctrl+D to deslect. Set this Layer to Vivid Light mode.

Let's make shafts of light coming down from the sunny spot on the surface to light the subject. Duplicate the Light Layer, drag it just below the Subject Layer, and set the Blend Mode to normal. We'll call this later the Lighting Layer. Duplicate the Lighting Layer and merge the two Lighting Layers to give it more contrast. Run levels to increase the contrast still further. Put a Rectangular Marquee around the Lighting Layer ripples and as high as the entire document, then choose Filter, Blur, and Motion Blur. Set the angle of the blur to ninety degrees and the distance to 999. Click OK, deselect, and using Transform Scale and Perspective, stretch and angle the shafts of light to suit your subject. Set this layer to Screen Blend mode. Finally, darken areas farthest from the light by painting black on a new layer, or using a black to white gradient. Now you're done.

He said on 08.19.05 @ 04:41 PM CST