In this tutorial you will learn how to create a realistic underwater effect

in Photoshop using various filters, lighting effects and blending

techniques.

Download the following files were used during the production of this

exercise

Rocks Image

Stones image

Fish Brushes

Step 1

Create a new document with width 950px and height 1000px. Now pick

the ‘gradient tool’ to give gradient to your background.

Step 2

Create a new layer by going to Layer> New> Layer and label it as

‘surface’. Select some area on this layer using ‘rectangular marquee

tool’. Use default colors, which are # 000000 as foreground and #ffffff

as background and go to Filter> Render> Clouds.

Step 3

Keep this ‘surface’ layer selected and go to Filter> Artistic> Plastic

wrap. Use the following values for plastic wrap.

Now press ‘Ctrl+T’ to resize this selected area and expand it to fit your

canvas.

Duplicate this ‘surface’ layer.

Step 4

Press ‘Ctrl+T’ to resize and drag this textured layer to the top portion of

your canvas as shown below.

After that, we’ll add some lighting to the ‘surface’ layer. For this, go to

Filter> Render> Lighting effects and use ‘omni’ to get nice effect.

Step 5

In order to finish our surface portion, change the ‘blending mode’ to

‘Luminosity’ and reduce the opacity of this layer to 80%. Select the soft

round eraser tool to erase the lower edges, so it can blend with the

background.

Step 6

Now select the duplicated surface layer and decrease its size a bit by

pressing ‘Ctrl+T’. Drag it just below the original surface portion. Use

‘Overlay’ blending mode and 50% opacity and erase its edges to get the

effect like this.

Step 7

Next, we’ll create some residue in water. Create a new layer just above

the gradient layer. Fill it with # 000000 color. Go to Filter> Noise> Add

noise and use the following values.

After that, change the blending mode of this noise layer to ‘screen’ and

opacity to 15%.

Step 8

Next, we’ll create the bottom of our image. Open the ‘stones’ image and

select its bottom part using ‘Polygonal Lasso tool’ and place it in the

main file. Then click ‘Ctrl+U’ to open the ‘Hue and Saturation’ window

and use the following values to extract colors.

Step 9

Open the ‘rocks’ image now and select some portion of rocks using

‘Polygonal Lasso tool’ and desaturate the image exactly as done in step

8 (Hue & Saturation). After this, adjust the position of both stones and

rocks images to give realistic look.

Step 10

Duplicate the blue gradient layer and place its copy just above ‘rocks’

image layer. Change its blending mode to ‘Linear light’ and opacity to

80%.

Step 11

Now we’ll create sunrays penetrating through the surface. Create a new

layer, select a square about 80% of your canvas size, using ‘rectangular

marquee tool’ and go to Filter> Render> Clouds. Then click on Image>

Adjustments>Threshold and use the following values.

After this, go to Filter> Blur> Radial blur and use the given settings.

Change the blending mode to ‘Linear dodge’ and opacity to 50%.

Step 12

At the end, we’ll add some fishes using fish brushes. Select the ‘brush

tool’ and draw them of different sizes. I added color to few through

‘color overlay’ blending option. Collect all fishes in a new group and

reduce its opacity to 75%.That’s it, we are all done.