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Fill a swimming pool with water in seconds!
Well, create the appearance of a swimming pool filled with water
in Photoshop in just four steps. We'll use the Clouds,
Crystallize, Gaussian Blur, and Glass filters to create rippling
water.
Make your foreground color a light blue
and the background color a dark blue. Create a new image, or add
a layer, or make a selection. Filter> Render> Clouds. (This
filter has no user-definable settings and so is applied without
a dialog box.)
Filter> Pixelate> Crystallize. Use a Cell Size setting
appropriate for the size of your image. For a low-resolution,
relatively small image, a Cell Size of 25-40 is adequate. Larger
images will require a higher setting.
Applying a Gaussian Blur
softens the cells created with the previous filter. For this
image, a radius of five pixels is suitable. For larger images, a
more substantial blur is necessary. The goal is to blur not only
the edges of the cells, but to soften the appearance generally.
We'll add ripples to the
perceived surface of the water with the filter Distort> Glass.
In Photoshop CS, the Filter Gallery will open. In earlier
versions of Photoshop, the Glass dialog box will open. The
options are the same, only the interface differs. The values for
the Distortion, Smoothness, and Scaling depend on your image
size. However, regardless of image size, the Texture pop-up menu
should be set to Frosted.
Add a "see-ment pond" (for
those old enough to remember "The Beverly Hillbillies" or add a
new layer, create a selection around the outside of the water,
fill with color, apply a texture or grain, and add a bevel layer
style that mimics the lighting in the image.
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