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Turn water into art
Techniques
01 October 2009 13:00
Practical Photography’s November Weekend project shows you how to shoot water ripples to create your very own unique wall art. This step-by-step is an additional technique for blending two or more of your water droplet shots together to make a larger symmetrical pattern. It’s not as difficult to achieve as it looks and the results can be very impressive.
Scroll down to follow the 5 simple steps.
STEP 1
Open two of your images. On the Layers palette in Photoshop or Elements click and hold the mouse down on the Background layer. Hold down Shift, and drag this layer into the other image. Holding down Shift will drop the image into the centre of the other, lining it up perfectly. Now all you have to do is change the Layer Blend mode (the pull down menu on the Layers palette) to overlay. This will add contrast and allow the lower layer to show through. If you want to tweak the effect, you can change the opacity of the top layer. This control can also be found on the Layers palette.
STEP 2
Now flatten your layers by clicking on the thick black arrow on the Layers palette and going to Flatten Image. Select all using the shortcut Ctrl +A, and then copy by pressing Ctrl+C. Now go to Image>Canvas Size (Image>Resize>Canvas Size in Elements) and make sure that the Relative box is checked, and click on the bottom-left square. This is so your canvas expands to the right and above your original image. The original image dimensions are displayed at the top of the dialogue box and these are what you need to input into the New Size boxes. Click OK.
STEP 3
Your canvas will now expand to accommodate more images. Use the shortcut Ctrl+V to paste the image you copied in the previous step. You now need to flip the pasted image so go to Transform>Flip Horizontal. The now flipped image needs to be put to the right of the original. Use the Move tool, activated using the shortcut V to move this new layer into position.
STEP 4
Make sure the second layer is active (highlighted blue) and copy to a new layer by pressing Ctrl+J. This layer needs to be flipped, but because it’s going above the second layer it need to be flipped vertically. Go to Transform>Flip Vertical. Use the Move tool, activated using the shortcut V to move this new layer into position at the top right of the canvas.
STEP 5
Make sure the third layer (top-right) is active (highlighted blue) and copy to a new layer by pressing Ctrl+J. This layer needs to be flipped horizontally. Go to Transform>Flip Horizontal. Use the Move tool, activated using the shortcut V to move this new layer into position at the top left of the canvas. Zoom in to make sure everything’s lined up perfectly before flattening the image. This is done by clicking on the thick black arrow on the Layers palette and going to Flatten Image.