The Water Effect
Since quite a bit of detail is lost when re-sizing images, I have included a full size version as well. Click on the image above to view the 156K, full size, jpeg version. Use your browsers' back button to return here.

For this effect we will use a variety of filters, image adjustment tools, layer effects, channels and composite modes.

How To Use This Tutorial
Throughout this tutorial, you will see keyboard and menu commands represeted as (Image>Adjust>Levels or Ctrl/Command+L). The first set is a menu commands. This means select Image from the PhotShop Menu, select Adjust from the menu option and pick Levels from the sub-menu. The second set is a keyboard shortcut. This means hold down the Ctrl (Windows) or Command Key (MAC) and press the 'L' key on your keyboard. There are two instances when you will see Windows/Mac key represented together. They are Ctrl/Command and Alt/Option. Use the appropriate key for your operating system.

If you have any questions regarding any of the steps involved in this tutorial, feel free to shoot me off an email at rkelly@indigoproductions.com.


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Introduction
Last year, after I did the 'Vampire Blood' seminar, many of the readers came to visit us at our company WebSite, indigoproductions.com, where I give away several different effects in the form of Photoshop Actions. Since then, I have received quite a bit of email with questions regarding many of the different techniques used in creating these effects. In particular, techniques for creating reflective, shiny and transparent surfaces such as those found in glass, metal and liquids. With that, I decided maybe it was time to do another seminar that dealt with a surface that has all of those attributes...water.

In this seminar, we will tackle many different challenges such as, lighting and light refraction, highlights and glare, shadows and glows, and in the process, we will use everything from channels, filters, layer effects to image adjustment tools and composite/blending modes.

One thing to keep in mind as we go, is that there are many different ways in Photoshop to create the same effect. Since I come from the 'pre-layers' era, I still enjoy using some of the 'nuts and bolts' tools that Photoshop has to offer such as Curves, Image Calculations and Channels to name just a few. You may have techniques of your own that achieve the same results as some of the steps in this seminar. For that reason, we will use as many different types of effects as possible and I will try and point out alternative techniques along the way.

One of the great things about Photoshop is that it's like a Swiss Army Knife with 16 different types of bottle openers. They all function a bit differently, but the final result is the same. Your bottle is open, your enjoying a cold beer by the camp fire trying to decide which one of the 14 types of tooth picks your going to use to pluck that corn-on-the-cob out of your teeth.

Anyway, let's get started.
Intro / Step 1 / Step 2 / Step 3 / Step 4 / Step 5 / Step 6 / Step 7 / Step 8 / Step 9 / Step 10 / Step 11 / Step 12 / Final