Step 8
This looks pretty good so far. We have a nice, smooth embossed type with a nice rounded look, but it doesn't have a very 'liquid feel' to it yet. We will correct that with one of my favorite tools, Curves. If your new to curves, it can be a little intimidating at first. However, this is one of the most powerful tools in the Photoshop arsenal. It gives you complete control over all 256 pixel levels from black to white in your image. We are going to use it here to increase the contrast between highlights and shadows and really give our water object a nice and shiny appearance.

Open the Curves Dialog (Image>Adjust>Curves or Ctrl/Command+M). Take a look at figure 17 and I will try to briefly explain what you are looking at. The first thing you will notice is the graph. Below the graph you will see a gradient bar that goes from black to white horizontally. This represents the 256 levels of gray in the image on the currwnt layer or channel. Along the left side you will see another gradient bar that goes from black to white vertically. This represents the what the pixel levels are set to. By default, the are matched up black for black, white for white and gray for gray. You can change that, however. I will show you what I mean. Put your cursor anywhere over the line in the graph and click. You will notice that you just added an anchor point. You will also notice that you can move that anchor point. Go ahead, move it around and note the effect it has on your image. What you are doing is changing pixel values from one level of gray (the horizontal gradient) to another (the vertical gardient). If you where to flatten the line by grabbing the white anchor at the right of the graph and dragging it all the way down, you will have remapped all of the pixels in the image to black.

Anyway, enough of that. Match up the curve in the graph as closely as possible to the one in figure 17. You can add anchor points and move them around manually. You can also add anchor points and type in the Input and Output levels exactly. The settings are also shown in figure 17. Your image should now have been transformed from the one in figure 16 i(n step 7) to the one in figure 18.

Lets go ahead and add a few more highlights by using the Plastic Wrap Filter. This is a great filter for creating irregular highlights like those found in liquids, gels, glass, etc. Open up the Plastic Wrap Filter (Filter>Artistic>Plastic Wrap) and use the settings found in figure 19. Click OK and you should have some pretty intense highlights. Let's tone those down a bit by selecting the Fade Dialog Box (Filter>Fade or Shift+Ctrl/Comman+F). Fade the highlights to about 25% opacity. We want these to be a visible, but subtle. Your image should now look like figure 20.

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Levels

Figure 17
The Curves Dialog Box. The Input - Output Levels from black to white are 0-0, 50-64, 64-111, 128-128, 192-195, 214-195, 255-255.

Water.psd (water)

Figure 18
The 'water' layer after applying the Curves settings in figure 17. Notice the higher contrast in the highlights and shadows.

Plastic Wrap

Figure 19
The Plastic Wrap Filter is great for making irregular highlights like those found in liquids.

Water.psd (water)

Figure 20
The water layer after fading the Plastic Wrap Filter.