Rangefinder Magazine
February 2005

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Photoshop CS: Creating Water Droplets by Dave Cross

This is one of a series of Adobe® Photoshop® tutorials sponsored by Adobe Systems and the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP) to be reprinted in Rangefinder taken from the Photoshop User magazine, the official publication of NAPP (www.photoshopuser.com).

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Nothing could be worse than spilling water on your favorite holiday snapshots—unless of course you want to for some creative special effect. Luckily, Photoshop lets us create water droplets that we can easily “wipe off” without any lasting damage to our photographs.

STEP ONE: Choose an appropriate photo and add a new layer. Fill the layer with white (Cmd-Delete or Ctrl-Delete on a PC).

STEP TWO: From the Filter menu, choose Noise > Add Noise. For Amount enter 400%, Gaussian Distribution, and check Monochromatic. Click OK.

STEP THREE: From the Filter Menu, choose Blur > Gaussian Blur. Add a 5-pixel blur and click OK.

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STEP FOUR: Go to the Image menu, under Adjustments, and choose Threshold. In the dialog box, drag the slider slightly to the right until the spots appear fairly large. Click OK. Press Cmd-F (Ctrl-F) to apply the Gaussian filter again with a 5-pixel Blur. Go to the Threshold command again and move the slider to the right until you have even larger spots.

STEP FIVE: Switch to the Magic Wand (W) tool and click in the white area surrounding the drops. Press Delete (Backspace) to delete the whiter areas. Next, select all the spots by inversing the selection (Cmd-Shift-I or Ctrl-Shift-I). Click on the Color Picker in the Toolbox to choose a light gray. (We used 181 for R, G, and B). Click OK. Press Opt-Delete (Alt-Backspace) to fill the selected area with gray. Deselect by pressing Cmd-D (Ctrl-D).

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STEP SIX: Click on the Layer Style icon (f) at the bottom of the Layers palette, and choose Bevel. Increase the Soften amount to 6 and the Highlight Opacity to 100% (as shown). Don’t click OK yet.

STEP SEVEN: Click on the word Stroke under Options on the left side of the Layer Style dialog, change the Size to 1, and Opacity to 50%. Click on the Color swatch and choose a dark gray color. Click OK to close the dialog box.

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STEP EIGHT: In the Layers palette, change the Blending mode from Normal to Hard Light to make the gray centers of the drops transparent, leaving just the highlights and shadows visible. Add text to complete the effect.

Optional Steps
If there were really water droplets on our image, the underlying image would be distorted ever-so-slightly. Here are a couple of additional steps to add a subtle distortion.

STEP ONE: With the water drops layer active, change the Blend mode to Normal. Press Cmd-A (Ctrl-A) to Select All, then Copy (Cmd/Ctrl-C).

STEP TWO: In the Channels palette, click on the Create a New Channel button at the bottom of the palette (Alpha 1), and then Paste (Cmd/Ctrl-V). Apply a Gaussian Blur of 1 to 2 pixels. Deselect.

STEP THREE: Hide the water drops layer and activate the Background layer. From the Filter menu choose Liquify.

STEP FOUR: In the Liquify dialog box, use the Freeze Area pop-up menu to choose the Alpha 1 Channel (assuming you didn’t re-name your new channel). Now take the Bloat tool (B) and click over each area where there’s no overlay (the water drops) to slightly bloat the image. Click OK.

STEP FIVE: Show the water drops layer and change the Blend mode to Hard Light.

Dave Cross is Senior Developer, Education and Curriculum for NAPP (National Association of Photoshop Professional) and co-author of three books: Photoshop 7 & Illustrator 10: Create Great Advanced Graphics, Photoshop 7 Trade Secrets, and Adobe Illustrator Killer Tips. Dave is also one of the lead instructors for NAPP’s Adobe Photoshop Seminar Tour.