And this is what you can do with it (hair, timber, sunset):
01. Draw a grayscale linear gradient with the Gradient tool (shortcut: G).
- Make your canvas wider than you want the final image to be, you can make it smaller after you have finished.
- Hold Shift whilst drawing to keep the gradient straight.
- The lower 10% of the image should be completely white. The white will be the dark part of the water, and without enough of it the water looks depthless.
- The darkest shade the gradient should have has a colour Value of about 25. Colours darker than this produce water which looks over-exposed (light saturated).
02. Make a new layer (shortcut: Ctrl+Shift+N) above the gradient layer and change the Blend Mode to Negation (double click layer > Blending > Negation).
03. Reset the primary colour to black and the secondary colour to white.
04. On the new layer, render Clouds (Effects > Render > Clouds) with the default values except for the blend mode which should also be set to Negation.
05. Type Ctrl+F seven times to repeat the effect.
06. On the same layer use Outline (Effects > Stylize > Outline) with a Thickness of 14 and Intensity of 60.
07. Flatten the image (shortcut: Ctrl+Shift+F).
08. Use Curves (shortcut: Ctrl+Shift+M) to colour the image, set the Transfer Map to RGB and move the colours as illustrated (Blue: (119, 139); Green: (143, 113); Red: (165, 98)).
09. Duplicate the layer (shortcut: Ctrl+Shift+D).
10. Use Curves (shortcut: Ctrl+Shift+M) to colour the top layer as illustrated (Blue: (119, 143); Green: (119, 143); Red: (144, 119))
11. Change the Blend Mode of the top layer to Overlay (double click layer > Blending > Overlay).
12. Flatten the image (shortcut: Ctrl+Shift+F).
13. Resize the image (shortcut: Ctrl+R), ensure Maintain Aspect Ratio is unchecked and increase the width to 350% of the original.
- Smaller width increases produce “rougher seas” and larger width increases produce “calmer seas”.
14. Select all of the image (you can crop later, and it is easier to find a good combination that looks like water)
15. Copy (shortcut: Ctrl+C) and paste onto a new layer (shortcut: Ctrl+Shift+V) and change the Blend Mode of the new layer to Darken (double click layer > Blending > Darken).
16. Move (shortcut: M) the copy horizontally (click and hold on the image the use the left and right arrow keys) until you get something that looks watery.
17. Select all of the bottom layer, copy (shortcut: Ctrl+C) and paste onto a new layer between the current layers (shortcut: Ctrl+Shift+V).
18. Set middle layer’s Blend Mode to Lighten (double click layer > Blending > Lighten) and Move (shortcut: M) it directly behind the other copy.
The following steps are optional. My image had an brightness artifact near the bottom and this fixed it.
19. Crop to selection (shortcut: Ctrl+Shift+X).
20. Duplicate the middle layer (shortcut: Ctrl+Shift+D).
21. Set Blend Mode of the layer second from the bottom to Darken (double click layer > Blending > Darken).
22. Draw a transparent gradient from the second fifth from the bottom of the image to about halfway (hold shift to keep the gradient straight).
23. If the water looks too wavy you can increase the width of the image.
Edited by brad.pike, 27 August 2011 - 12:54 PM.
