Tutorial: Water droplets

[jaz]

Jin asked me how I did my water droplets. I have two methods:

A) Spray them on using a squirt gun for the large droplets and a mister for smaller particles
B) Make them in photoshop with the following recipe:

1) Create a new level
2) Add guassian, monochromatic noise 200%-400%
3) Apply Guassian blur, 3-5 pixel radius
4) Adjust->Threshold - Adjust slider 'til you get the size drops you want
5) Magic Wand select the background, clear it
6) Invert selection, fill droplets with a light gray
7) Apply another guassian blur with droplets selected
8) Use layer properties to bevel and emboss droplets. I created a custom contour curve but you can usually find something you like with the built-in contour curves
9) Apply another light blur (1 pixel or so to taste)
10) Adjust opacity
11) Using a layer mask to mask out droplets from background of image.

Quick example here (You can do alot better if you take longer than the 5 minutes I spent on this)

Jaz

[jaz]

Another recipe:

Here's another water droplet recipe:

1) Create a new level
2) Add guassian, monochromatic noise 200%-400%
3) Apply Guassian blur, 3-5 pixel radius
4) Adjust->Threshold - Adjust slider 'til you get the size drops you want
5) Magic Wand select the background, clear it
6) Invert selection, fill droplets with a light gray
7) Apply another guassian blur with droplets selected
8) stroke on inside with medium gray 2 px stroke
9) emboss using height of 3
10) apply plastic wrap 18, 11, 11
11) Unsharp Mask 200,2,1
12) Hard or soft light on water drops, opacity to taste

example:

http://www.jackzucker.com/images/water2.jpg

[Mike Needham]

I am into scanography and art involving scans, the spray with water method as you say is very popular, I add a drop of vegetable oil (any would do I suppose) to the water, it gives it a touch more viscosity(spelling?).

[jaz]

Originally posted by Mike Needham
I am into scanography and art involving scans, the spray with water method as you say is very popular, I add a drop of vegetable oil (any would do I suppose) to the water, it gives it a touch more viscosity(spelling?).

I've also read that many products are shot with glycerin spray which has more viscosity and therefore does not run or evaporate.

However, on the back of a recent magazine backpage cover I saw a beer add which almost definitely had a photoshop waterdroplet layer applied to it...

[jaz]

another water droplet example

http://www.jackzucker.com/images/wc2water.jpg