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How Do You Add a Water Effect in Photoshop?

Last updated on September 24, 2022 @ 1:02 am

Adding a water effect to an image in Photoshop is a great way to create a realistic or surreal scene. There are many different ways to achieve this, but the most common is to use the Displace filter. This filter allows you to warp an image based on the luminosity of pixels, which is perfect for creating a water rippling effect.

To start, open your image in Photoshop and duplicate the layer. Then go to Filter > Distort > Displace. In the Displace dialog box, set the Horizontal Scale and Vertical Scale to 10, and click OK. A new dialog box will open asking you to select a displacement map.

Choose any image, it doesn’t matter what it is.

Once you’ve selected your displacement map, another dialog box will open. Set the Horizontal and Vertical Scale to 50% and click OK. Your image should now be distorted.

Next, go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur. In the Gaussian Blur dialog box, set the radius to 2 pixels and click OK. Your image should now be blurred.

Finally, go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Levels. In the Levels dialog box, drag the middle input level slider to the right until it’s at 1.15. This will increase the contrast of your image and make the water effect more pronounced.

The steps above are just one way that you can create a water effect in Photoshop. There are many different techniques that you can use to achieve this look, so experiment until you find one that works best for your particular image.

PRO TIP: Adding a water effect in Photoshop may seem like a simple process, but there are a few things to keep in mind to make sure your final product looks realistic. First, when choosing your water image, be sure to find an image with a high resolution so that the finished product will not be pixelated. Second, when adding the water effect, be sure to use a layer mask so that you can control exactly where the water appears in your image. Finally, when adjusting the opacity of the water layer, be careful not to make it too transparent or the effect will not be believable.
Kathy McFarland

Kathy McFarland

Devops woman in trade, tech explorer and problem navigator.