The Perfect Splash

CATEGORIES: Digital Photography, Photoshop, Tutorials | Jim DiVitale | October 07, 2005

In the days of working with film products, creating images with splashing water was an incredible challenge. Today, digital capture provides a control we never had before. Just shoot the splashing water over several images and combine the best parts into one-in Photoshop CS, of course.In many cases, to create the illusion of splashing water, photographers would have to resort to creating splash molds made of acrylic plastic to get the water exactly the way they wanted. These molds looked okay to the casual eye, but a closer glance would reveal the static look of the acrylic water prop.

This particular ad called for an image of three bottles with water splashing from all directions. We constructed a small, plastic-lined set out of wood with a small sheet of blue Plexiglas set into the bottom for the background. To provide the splashing water, we used about $15 worth of clear plastic tubing and a connecting splitter that divided the line into three separate tubes. We hot-glued small wood blocks to the backs of the three bottles and then glued them to the Plexiglas background. The camera was set up overhead and we then locked everything down tightly to help with the multiple shot registration.

The set is lit with two strobe light units at low power to create a short flash duration. The more power firing through the flash unit, the longer the flash duration, causing the water to look blurred. That water is fast-moving and a little blur makes it look real compared to the razor-sharp look of an acrylic splash mold. We then poured a quart of water into the tubing and an electric air compressor shot a blast of water out of the tubes, spreading over the three bottles. It’s a hit-or-miss undertaking to catch the water in the right position, but we took several images with the water moving around differently in every one. We also took one perfect shot with the bottles spritzed with water droplets and added it to the stack of images. Then, all of the additional splash images can be combined into one perfect splash.

STEP 1:

Select and open five of the best images from the File Browser. Choose one as your anchor Background image and four others that have interesting patterns of splashing water in areas where the background image is lacking.

While pressing the Shift key (to keep the images in register), use the Move tool (V) to drag additional splash images over to the Background image.

STEP 2:

One layer at a time, check the registration by reducing the layer Opacity to 50% (press the 5 key) and then pressing Command-I (PC: Control-I) to invert the layer. If it’s in registration, the overlapping part of the image will gray out as the positive and 50% negative come together. If it’s out of position, it will look embossed.

Using the Arrow keys, move the layer a pixel or two up or down until the registration looks correct. Press Command-I (Control-I) to invert the layer back to positive and press the zero (0) key to bring the Opacity back to 100%.

Do this step for each layer except the Background layer.

STEP 3:

Add a black (hide all) layer mask to each layer (not the Background layer) by pressing the Option key (PC: Alt key) and clicking in the Add Layer Mask icon (circle in a square at the bottom of the Layers palette). You can temporarily disable/enable the mask by Shift-clicking on the layer mask thumbnail, which lets you view the entire layer to locate the best splashing water.

When working with the layer mask, use a soft brush (B) set to a low opacity (up in the Options Bar) and paint with white (Foreground color) to reveal the layer. If you’ve painted too much, press the X key to switch your Foreground color to black and you can slowly remove the layer by painting with black.

STEP 4:

Repeat the previous step for each of the additional splashing water layers. Then brush water into multiple areas, making the splash bigger than any of the single splash images alone.

STEP 5:

Add a clean bottle image to the top of the layer stack and check it for registration as in Step Two. Next, add a black layer mask to conceal the layer, and then carefully paint on the mask with white to “reveal” the labels.

STEP 6:

The last thing to do is remove the three clear tubes coming in from the top of the image. Click on the bottom anchor image in the Layers palette to make it active. Select the Clone Stamp tool (S) from the Toolbox and using a soft brush at 50% Opacity, gradually clone the tubes out of the image. It’s best to build up the density by slowly sampling (Option-Click [PC: Alt-click]) the area to clone from several areas. This keeps the soft water motion looking consistent throughout the image.

FINAL

We added some text and here’s the final ad. It amazes me how an image like this can be constructed so easily from individual registered images…with digital capture and Photoshop CS, everybody wins.

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