step by step Box clever

create a playful creature caricature using the liquify filter

Quick Tip! Liquify can be applied non-destructively to a Smart Object layer so that the filter remains endlessly editable

01 Isolate the animal

Paint over the animal with the Quick Selection Brush (if it picks up any background, hold Alt and paint to subtract). Once you have a selection, go to Select> Refine Edge, increase Radius and check Smart Radius to improve it. Set Output to: New Layer. Hit OK.

02 Fill In the background

Go to the Layers panel, highlight the bottom layer and hit Ctrl+ j to duplicate it. Ctrl-click on the rhino layer’s thumbnail. Go to Select> modify> expand and set 15px. Go to Edit> fill and choose Contents: Content-aware to create a rough backdrop minus the rhino.

03 Reshape the body

Right-click on the top layer and ‘Convert to Smart Object’. Go to Filter> liquify. Use the Forward Warp tool and a large brush size to nudge the edges of the animal into whatever shape you like. The Forward Warp tool is most effective with lots of short pushes.

04 angle the details

Continue pushing pixels with the Liquify tools. You can take the effect as far as you like, perhaps by making the details, like the eye here, more angular. If any areas go wrong, rebuild them using the Reconstruct tool in the Liquify toolbar. Hit OK when you’re happy.

05 tidy the edges

There will be messy patches around the edges of the animal. Click on the Create New Layer icon in the Layers panel and grab the Clone tool. Set Sample: All Layers in the tool options, then zoom in, hold Alt to sample the nearby background, and clone to tidy up.

06 Finishing touches

Pick the Spot Healing tool, set to Sample All Layers, and paint to remove any messy spots. Finally, with the top layer highlighted, click on the Create Adjustment Layer icon in the Layers panel, pick Curves, then plot an S-shaped curve to boost the colours slightly.