Create Realistic Water Drops in Photoshop
A quick tutorial to send you on the right path to creating convincing water in your images.
With the paint brush tool and a basic hard round brush, set your color to a 50% grey. Tablet users should also set the brush shape dynamics to pen pressure for added ease. Sample results will look like this..
The simplest way to be sure you have the exact shade of gray is to enter a “50″ in the box that is highlighted in the Brightness box. Be sure the Saturation box is 0. (S=0) Or simply slide the picker to the far left edge.
Now, right click on the layer you will be painting the water in and go to its blending options menu. This is where we work most of the magic of this technique. Setting the layer’s properties to the following state will essentially allow us to ‘paint’ water on to surfaces. In the Blending Options tab, set the blend mode to Overlay.
For the following settings, keep in mind that not all aspects must be exactly the same. You will want to adjust colors, opacity, etc. to compliment the specific image you are applying water to. Because of the way water captures and refracts light, it will reflect the colors of its surroundings. If you are going to paint drops on to a blue car, you don’t want orange light reflected inside the drops. Just keep this in mind when matching your settings to the screen captures.
Turn on drop shadow and mimic these settings:
The drop shadow settings will create a slight shadow next to the droplets that are cast by the water itself. You will want the direction to be relative to the light source of your photo/illustration.
Next, turn on Inner Shadow. This will serve to be the reflected color inside the water drop. Remember, the color is relative. Where I have a light green, you will have to choose the color that best represents your images circumstances. A good start is to just choose the color of the object that the water is on.
Next, turn on Outer Glow. This is going to represent the light that bounces off the water. Think of the flickering glow of light that graces the surface of anything over a well lit lake or swimming pool as waves ripple around. If you’re painting drops of water on to a blue car but it’s night and the primary light source is a red police light, you would likely want to choose a red for this step and the previous. Settings should be similar to this…
Lastly, we want to turn on Bevel & Emboss. This is primarily whats going to make these strokes pop out as three dimensional water drops. Play with these settings a lot after you initially mimic them because depending on the resolution you are working at, the pixel settings will come out looking different if your working smaller or bigger.
Select OK and take a minute to critique your water. Don’t be surprised if it doesn’t look all that great just yet, you likely just need to adjust your settings according to your image content and resolution.
You may now paint around with the brush tool and freely apply the water where ever and however you like.
Below, I painted some condensation on to the outside of a glass in this image from the Milk Packaging article here on Pixel Clouds.
This example may not be the most convincing display but you get the idea.
So then, essentially all we’re doing is painting the shape that water might take when on any given surface using a solid edged, medium grey brush. Below is the same image with the Blending Options that we used here turned off.
The rest is up to you to mimic the way water runs down glass or zig zags down skin or repels from waxed surfaces. Use reference pictures if you must to determine how water reacts when setting on or moving across various textures. Mimic those properties until you can paint on believable, realistic water.
39 Responses to “Create Realistic Water Drops in Photoshop”
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@ Elaina Ally, he used WordPress.
For some reason only half of the post is being displayed, is it my browser or the site?
Thanks for visiting Pixel Clouds. It must be your browser. I can see the whole post. Cheers, Ben
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