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Make text shadow float in water using Photoshop

A very useful Photoshop tutorial where we create a shadow of a text and make it appear like it's floating in the water.

 
  Author: NikMan | Version: CS5 | 11th August 2013 |  
 
 
1.
 

Open a picture of water similar to mine.


Also recommended:



 
 
2.
 

Choose the Horizontal Type Tool (T form a keyboard shorcut).

 
 
3.
 

Click the document and enter some text.

 
 
4.
 

Press Ctrl (Command in MacOS) + T and stretch the text a bit.

Press Enter to confirm.

 
 
5.
 

In the menu click Layer, Layer Style and choose Drop Shadow...

Set the Distance to about 25 px and click OK.

 
 
6.
 

Select the Background layer (see picture).

Press Ctrl (Command in MacOS) + A, to select the whole layer.

Press Ctrl (Command on MacOS) + C, to copy selection.

 
 
7.
 

Click the Channels tab and Create a new channel (see picture).

If you can't find Channel tab, click Window in the menu and choose Channels.

It will all become black, but that is completely normal.

 
 
8.
 

Press Ctrl (Command in MacOS) + V, to paste the selection.

 
 
9.
 

In the menu click Filter, Blur and choose Gaussian Blur...

Set Radius to 2 pixels and click OK.

 
 
10.
 

Press Ctrl (Command in MacOS) + L, to open Levels settings now drag the white and black slider a bit to the middle grey slider (see picture).

Click OK.

 
 
11.
 

In Channels tab, right-click Alpha 1 channel and choose Duplicate Channel...

 
 
12.
 

In the Duplicate Channel window,  set Document to New and enter a name (whatever you want).

Click OK.

 
 
13.
 

Photoshop will create a new document with your background.

 
 
14.
 

In the menu click File and choose Save As...

Enter a name for the Photoshop file and click Save.

Remember where you saved it!

 
 
15.
 

No go back to your original document.

Select the text layer layer.

 
 
16.
 

In the menu click Layer, Layer Style and choose Create Layer.

Photoshop will split the layer into a text layer and shadow layer.

Now select the Drop Shadow layer (see picture).

 
 
17.
 

In the menu click Filter, Distort and choose Displace...

Choose the similar settings as I did and click OK.

 
 
18.
 

Now find the Photoshop document you saved (Step 14) select it and click OK.

 
 
19.
 

And like by some kind of magic, Photoshop should fit the shadow to the waves in the water.

You are done, good job!

 
 
20.
 

This is how the shadow layer looks like after we applied the Displace filter.

 
 
21.
 

And this is how the shadow layer looked like before we applied the Displace filter.

 
 
 
   
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