Wave of the Future

Photoshop 6.0 Tutorial by Russell Brown

About the Author Russell Brown is the Sr. Creative Director for Adobe Systems, Inc. These tutorials come from Russell Brown's "Adobe Photoshop 6.0 Tips and Techniques" CD. Visit www.russellbrown.com for more tips and special events!

Related Resources • Wave of the Past • Photoshop Tutorials

Adobe’s mad scientist Russell Preston Brown works with the new Liquify option in Adobe Photoshop 6.0.

INTERMEDIATE

Welcome to the Wave of the Future. You are going to see how to bend and curve text to follow the contours of a flag. And, it’s going to be easy with the use of the new Liquify option in Adobe® Photoshop® 6.0!

1. In this project, we’ll work with two layers: a text layer and a background image. In Photoshop, select the Channels palette. Create a copy of the channel with maximum contrast between the shadows, midtones, and highlights by dragging the channel on top of the new layer button at the bottom of the palette. In this case, we used the red channel.

Add Extra Contrast
After making a copy of the channel with the most contrast, you can enhance that contrast by using the Levels option.

2. Return to the Layers palette. Select and make visible the image you want to distort on the background. In this case, it’s the text layer.

Hint
If you choose to distort text in your project, Photoshop will automatically rasterize it when you select the Liquify tool. Remember, once you’ve used the Liquify tool the text can no longer be edited.

3. Choose Image > Liquify.

4. In the Liquify dialog box, select the shift pixel tool from the Tool palette. Before we start you might want to familiarize yourself with this tool by trying these simple experiments. Paint right to left across the top of the type and see the pixels of the type move down.

5. Next, paint left to right along the bottom of the type and see the pixels move up. Keep these shift pixel tool behaviors in mind, because you will be using them as we continue this project.

Cancel or Reset
Remember, at any time you can press the Option/Alt key to change the Cancel button to Reset and then reset the Liquify dialog box parameters– and the artwork–to the defaults.

6. If you paint wildly all over the image, you’ll find yourself back in the 60’s. It’s OK to experiment with mind-altering tools, because we can always revert back to normal by clicking the Revert button.

Shortcut
Press the Option/Alt key while painting with the shift pixel tool to change the direction of the pixel movement. You can do the same thing with any Liquify tool that gives you a choice of directional movement.

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