Tutorial Details
- Program: Adobe Photoshop CS4+
- Difficulty: Advanced
- Estimated Completion Time: 3 Hours
Step 1
Start by creating a New Document 1500 px by 1080 px named "Nail Scene." As you can see, I've sketched the scene I want to create.
Step 2
To create the background, create a New Group called "Water" and fill with white.
Step 3
Change the Foreground and Background colors to a Medium Blue and a Dark Blue as shown. Next, apply Fibers (Filter > Render > Fibers) with the following settings:
Step 4
Rotate the Fibers so that they run horizontally and Transform (Command/Ctrl + T) the fibers into perspective.
Step 5
On a New Layer, Fill with white and adjust the Blend If sliders in the Layer Styles to give the illusion of the sun reflecting of the tips of the waves. Note: This does not need to look perfect since it will be obscured by a Lens Blur that we will apply later.
Step 6
On a New Layer, use a large brush with 0% hardness to add a soft highlight to the water. Again, adjust the Blend If sliders to give the illusion of a strong glare from the sun.
Step 7
Merge these two layers together and rename "Water."
Step 8
Now it's time to add the Lens Blur Filter. Go to Filter > Blur > Lens Blur and add the following settings:
Your image should resemble the following:
Step 9
To finish the illusion of the out-of-focus water, we are going to enhance the bokeh effect (the Bokeh Effect is the lens blurring created by an actual camera which Photoshop has attempted to do with the Lens Blur Filter). Create a New Layer called "Bokeh" and, varying the Hardness and Opacity, add dots all over the scene, concentrating dots around areas with brighter colors. Try to vary the brush size and overlap the dots. Adjust the Layer's Opacity to get the right balance of transparency to the bokeh effect.
Step 10
Next we are going to start the wood dock. I want to create this as large as possible in order to have a lot of texture to work with. To start, create a New Document 5000 px by 3000 px named "Dock Texture." Next, use the Polygonal Marquee Tool to draw an angled shape that mimics our initial sketch. Fill with any color. Open the Layer Styles and give this layer a dark brown Color Overlay
Step 11
Next we want to create a basic wood pattern. Create a New Document 1500 px by 1500 px and name it "Wood Texture" (Note: we should have three separate documents open now).
Step 12
With the Foreground and Background Colors set to Black and White, add the Clouds Filter (Filter > Render > Clouds). Scale 600% along the Height.
Step 13
Give this a Motion Blur (Filter > Blur > Motion Blur) of 230 px at 90 degrees. Next, go to Image > Posterize and set it to 25 Levels. Select Filter > Stylize > Find Edges and increase the Levels (Command/Ctrl + L) so the grain has more contrast.
Step 14
Add Noise at 65% (Gaussian, Monochromatic) and give the result another Motion Blur of 15px at 90 degrees. Invert the colors by pressing Command/Ctrl + I.
Step 15
Drag this texture in to our "Dock Texture" document and position the "Wood Texture" into perspective (it doesn't have to fill the entire layer) and make it a clipping layer. Now, add a Motion Blur with the angle set to 8 degrees and the distance to 75 px. The Motion Blur will help obscure the pixilation from resizing the layer.
Step 16
Set the layer's Blending Mode to Screen and the Opacity to 30%
Step 17
To add some subtle depth to the texture, make a copy of this layer and Invert (Command/Ctrl + I).
Nudge the layer down and to the right slightly using your arrow keys. Add a Gaussian Blur with a Radius of 9.9 px and a Motion Blur Filter of 75 px at 8 degrees. Lastly reduce the Opacity to 5%.
Step 18
In order to add more variation to this texture, create a new layer called "Variation" and apply the Clouds Filter while holding down ALT (make sure your Foreground and Background Colors are set to Black and White). This will add more contrast to the filter, which is exactly what we need.
Step 19
Convert this layer in to a Smart Object and transform it in to perspective (again, we don't necessarily need to cover the entire plane). The Smart Object will allow us to go back and edit the transformation if needed.
