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Realistic Water Reflection with Photoshop


First you need to open an image with water. This can be an image from the beach, a pond, a pool or anything where you can have a person standing in water.

Realistic Water Reflection with Photoshop image 1

Now we will think ahead a little. Duplicate this layer, drop the color information (Ctrl + Shift + U) and save it as map.psd. We will need it later. After you saved the file, you can delete this new layer.

Realistic Water Reflection with Photoshop image 2

Next thing you do is to bring into this image, into a new layer, the person that will use. You can use objects too, but make sure they are isolated (that means without any background).

Realistic Water Reflection with Photoshop image 3

Now we need to tweek a little this layer, cause when you stand in water, your feet don't look like a straight line where they go into the water, so we need to adjust that with the rubber tool. Just round the edges of the feet where they meet the water.

Realistic Water Reflection with Photoshop image 4

Unless you are a statue and the water is still, you're going to have some ripples around your feet while standing in water, so we're going to do that now. Behind our current layer, create a new one and fill it with 50% Gray (Shift + Backspace).

Realistic Water Reflection with Photoshop image 5

Now render some clouds. Remember that you need to have the default colors set for foreground and background. If you don't have the default colors of black and white, just hit D key before rendering the clouds.

Realistic Water Reflection with Photoshop image 6

To achieve that ripple effect we need to apply 2 filters. Go to Filters - Distort - Twirl and apply it. Those numbers work for my image, but you may wanna try different values, according to your image size.

Realistic Water Reflection with Photoshop image 7

After this effect, go to Filters - Distort - ZigZag and apply it. Again, you may wanna change the values to work better with your image.

Realistic Water Reflection with Photoshop image 8

After that, use the transform tool (Ctrl + T) to adjust the size of this layer and perspective to make it look real. Position it so one leg of our person fit in the middle of this ripple, add a layer mask and hide the margins of this layer so it looks round and set the blending mode to Soft Light. This is how your layer should look:

Realistic Water Reflection with Photoshop image 9

Duplicate this layer (Ctrl + J) and move it to the other leg. Now your composition should look more or less like this:

Realistic Water Reflection with Photoshop image 10

Now for the actual reflection in the water, duplicate the layer on top (the one with our person), flip it vertical and position it where it should be. Drag the new layer below those 2 layers with the ripples and set the layer transparency to 30%.

Realistic Water Reflection with Photoshop image 11

Remember where we started doing this, we saved a map.psd file? Now we're gonna make use of it. Select the layer with the reflection and go to Filters - Distort - Displace. Again the values may change for you.

Realistic Water Reflection with Photoshop image 12

After you hit OK in this screen, Photoshop is going to ask you to chose a displacement map. Guess what? Chose that file you saved earlier.

Realistic Water Reflection with Photoshop image 13

Now do the same thing for the 2 ripple layers. If everything worked fine, this is how the layers should look like for you:

Realistic Water Reflection with Photoshop image 14

… and this is how the final image should look like:

Realistic Water Reflection with Photoshop Tutorial: Final Result

Pretty close to reality, don't you think?



Author's URL: My Photoshop Tutorial
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