Add water effects to the foreground

Use our free Water Reflection Kit to add realistic reflection effects in Photoshop CC

If you want to give an image a brand-new look, this cool technique may be right up your street! It effectively ‘floods’ the foreground of any scene with a computergenerated water reflection effect, giving a perspective as though the scene is photographed from a low angle on a body of water.

All you have to do is choose the baseline of the source picture, and this becomes the ‘waterline’ in the new, flooded image. Take care to choose a horizontal line that could actually be a waterline – and for a convincing result, avoid anything breaking this line that would stand out as inappropriate when reflected.

The technique will work on all kinds of images, from still-life shots and full-length portraits to landscapes and architecture, but I’ve used it on a safari-park shot of a bison, to introduce a water hole to the scene. When you try the technique, be sure to follow it exactly as described: any layers in the wrong order will blow it!

Reflect your scene

Open an image in Photoshop CC. Select the Crop Tool. The bottom edge of the image is where your waterline will be, so drag the crop marquee over the entire image, then set the bottom of the crop to a baseline that looks natural as the water’s edge. Tick Delete Cropped Pixels in the Options bar, and press Return.

Press Ctrl/Cmd+J to copy the layer. In the Layers Panel, select the Background Layer. Go to Image > Canvas Size, tick Relative, change the units to Percent and put 100 in Height. Click on the top-middle Anchor box, set Canvas Extension Color to White and click OK. Now click on the top layer, and press Ctrl/Cmd+T. Shift-drag the top handle down to the bottom to flip the image and create a reflection, and press Return.

Add motion blur to the reflection

With the top layer with the reflection still selected, click the Lock Transparent Pixels icon. Go to Filter > Blur > Motion Blur, and set an Angle of 90º and a Distance of 40-50px. Click OK and the reflection will become slightly blurred. Now click on the Background layer, then click the Create A New Layer icon.

With this new layer active, Ctrl/Cmd-click on the reflection layer’s thumbnail to select its contents. Click the foreground colour swatch, then click directly on the background (or the sky) of the original pic to sample an appropriate overall reflection colour. Press Return, then press Alt+Backspace to fill the selected area on the middle layer. Press Ctrl/Cmd+D to lose the selection lines, and press V to deselect the Crop Tool.

Create the water effect

Copy the Water Reflection Kit on the download to your computer. Back in the image, click on the top layer to make it active, then go to Filter > Distort > Displace. Set Horizontal Scale to 200 and Vertical Scale to 400, and tick the Stretch To Fit and Repeat Edge Pixels boxes. Click OK; in the dialog box, find your Water Reflection Pack. Double-click one of the Reflection.psd files, and a rippled effect will appear on the reflected layer.

You can create different effects with different Displacement Map files, and by choosing different amounts in Horizontal Scale and Vertical Scale. Always make sure, though, that the Vertical Scale amount is double that of Horizontal Scale.

Add finishing touches

For a better water effect, with the top layer active, click the Add Layer Mask icon. Select the Gradient Tool and choose the Black/ White option from the presets. Make sure the Reverse box is not ticked, and drag from the bottom of the pic up to the water line. To tone down the effect, double-click the Layer Mask thumbnail and reduce Density. For a more defined water line, create a new layer at the top of the stack, and click with a soft black brush on the ‘join’ at the extreme left side. Shift-click on the right side to give a black band along the join. Change the Blending Mode to Multiply and add Gaussian Blur with a setting that gives a natural effect. Finally, crop off the bottom of the pic to improve the composition.