Create Water Reflection Photoshop Tutorial

Create Water Reflection Photoshop Tutorial

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In this Photoshop tutorial, I'll show you how you can create nice, realistic water reflect effect on your images. I'll use Photoshop CS4 for this tutorial. This is an easy tutorial and all you need is an image and about 5 minutes of time to make your photo look similar to this:

So let's get started.
Step 1
Open the image you're going to use and duplicate it. Then go to the main image and increase the canvas area. To do that, go to Image and then Canvas Size. We want to increase just the lower part of the canvas, so set it to the values below:

In the size select Percent and leave the width to 0 since we don't want to increase the width. Increase the height 100%. Make sure that Relative is checked and then click the top anchor arrow so that we only increase the lower part.

Step 2
Now go to the duplicated image and click Ctrl +T to bring the transformation tool. Right click the image and choose Flip Vertical.

Now bring the image to the lower part and this is what I got so far.

Step 3
Next, let's focus on creating the water effect to apply to the image.
Create a new layer and fill it with white. Go to Filters, then Sketch and choose Halftone Pattern.

Step 4
This will create the lines for the water ripples. Here they appear as blue and black lines but when we add it to the image it will blend perfectly. With the Halftone Pattern Options open, set it to the values below.

The size regulates the size of the lines. We don't want too much of that or it will completely distort the image. The contrast will make the lines sharp. It's ok to put the highest value here because we will soften it with the Gaussian Blur in the next step. Make sure the Pattern type is Line.
Step 5
Now go to Filters, then Blur and choose Gaussian Blur. Set it to about 4-5. That's about enough.

Step 6
With this layer, we'll create a brand new document to use it later. Go to Layer and choose Duplicate layer and that will bring up the options window. In the Document menu, choose New, name it and click OK to save it.

We can delete the Halftone Pattern layer now. Merge the two image layers into one new layer by clicking Ctrl+Shift+Alt+E.

Step 7
We will use this image to create the water ripple effect. Go to Filter, then Distort and choose Displace.

Set the Horizontal Scale to 4. You can play around with the values but try to keep it as realistic as possible. Select Stretch to Fit in the Displacement Map and Repeat Edge Pixels in Undefined Areas. Now a window will open for you to choose the Halftone Pattern document that we saved earlier. Choose it and click OK.

Step 8
Now we've applied the effect. But we want it to appear only in the bottom image. So go to the layer with the upside down image and press Ctrl and click on the layer to select the image. Add a mask layer by going to the bottom icon.

Result
Now the effect is applied to the lower image only. There you go. You got a really nice water reflection effect. I've reduced the saturation a bit in my lower image so there would be a line separating both images so it would be more realistic. Here's my final image.