Step 3
Now we need a background for our water. Since this is water, I thought we would make some nice bathroom tiles. The bathroom tiles also work well because of the horizontal and vertical lines. This will really enhance the effect when we get to the 'Light Refraction' part of the seminar. The bending of the tiles will be very obvious, therefore, enhancing the illusion of water.

To make our tiles, create a new Photoshop document. Make it a 72dpi, RGB image, 4 inches by 4 inches. Turn on the Grid (View>Show Grid or Ctrl/Command+") to use as guidelines. Make sure 'Snap To Grid' is checked in the View Menu (View>Snap To Grid). Use the Marquee Tool to select 2 inch by 2 inch sections in each of the four corners of the image as in figure 5. One at a time, we will fill thoses sections with color.

I chose blue as the color for my tiles, but you can use any two colors you wish. The RGB values for the lighter shade are 0,102,153. For the darker shade I used 0,51,102. Set your foreground color to the lighter shade of blue first by clicking on the Foreground Color in the Toolbox (left) and entering the RGB values in the Color Picker Dialog. Select the top left corner with the Marquee Tool as in figure 5 and fill the selected (Alt/Option+Backspace). Do this on the opposite corner as well before changing your foreground color to the darker shade. Fill the two opposite corners with the darker blue using the same steps. Your image should look like figure 5.

Next select the entire bathroom tile pattern (Select>All or Ctrl/Command+A). Your entire image should be selected. Now, set your tiles as a Pattern (Edit>Define Pattern). Go back to your water.psd document and select the background layer in the Layers Palette. Fill this with your new pattern. Select Edit>Fill from the menu to bring up the Fill Dialog Box. Under Contents choose Use: Pattern. For Blending, choose Opacity: 100% and a Mode of Normal. Your image should now look like figure 6. You can close the image you used to make the tile pattern.

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Figure 5
Use the Marquee Tool and the Grid to create your 'Bathroom Tile Pattern'. Fill the select areas with the foreground colors (Alt/Option+Backspace).

Water.pad (background)

Figure 6
Your background layer after filling it with your
'Bathroom Tile Pattern'.