Tutorial: Give the glass effect / water

Today's tutorial is a bit’ long, I wanted to document in detail all the steps, so that they could be understood without reading the explanations, but only flipping through the images.

Gimp with the photographic manipulations are very easy, but the technique which I will discuss today is quite complex, and write in this post also to remember it in the future. Today we start from a subject monochrome, and end up with having the same subject with the water effect.

To create the effect we will use all our flour sack, with the exception of are. Anyone is free to use the font that best satisfies the, preferably with rounded corners (It must seem written with water) and since I personally hate the “Comic Sans MS” I decided to use the '”Arabolical“.

Let's start with the classic white sheet. Measurements 640 x 480 px that coloreremo with a gradient mode “radial“of the same color in two different tones: #017189 and #00acd2.

The second step is to create a beautiful text capable of denigrating more that of praise. Categorically in white:

We will also add those who will become water drops. Create a new layer and do the dots with the tool “Brush“:

New level

Unlikely the drops are so regular and rounded. We will use the tool “iWarping” to deform a little ':

iWarping

The most useful thing the filter “iWarping” It is definitely the space devoted to’preview:

Merge in the low level of the drops “pasting” to that of the text, “click with the right level” – “Merge Down” (make sure we have the two levels involved one over the other):

Now we duplicate the layer with the appropriate button:

Duplicate Layer

To order call levels “Level 1” (one high) and “Level 2”. Click with the right- “Level 2” and select “Alpha to Selection”. Should be selected only the outline.

Now we go to the tab “Channels“:

Channels

And we create a new channel from selection:

New Channel

With the following characteristics:

Staying in the tab of the “Channels” apply three different blurring to the newly-created channel. Respectively 7, 4 and 1 pixel.

Work is finished we make invisible channel, by pressing the appropriate button:

Press "Hide channel"

Now we play with the “lighting effects”. Let's go back in the tab “Levels“, we select the “Level 1” and go into the menu “Filters” – “Light and shadow” – “Lighting Effects“:

Let's create a mappa a sbalzo the channel that we have blurred a little while ago:

Now it's up to lighting effects. Here is the first:

And now the according to:

And now the choice of materials:

Seen that the process of “Mappa a sbalzo” it is not always intuitive to understand, I published a small screencast which explains the “Mappa a sbalzo” at bottom of page.

Finally, we can click the button “Ok“. This should be the result:

Now by always selecting the “Level 2” go to lock the alpha channel, by clicking on the check box:

Block the "Alpha Channel"

We set up a Gaussian blur with radius 4px, subsequently we unlock the channel. Do not feel like nothing happened, but this little trick makes the work more realistic eye.

Now we will make Transparent our text. After selecting the “Level 1” go on “Colors” – “Color to Alpha“:

And we select a gray not too dark.

Color to Alpha

This little trick does nothing but make transparent fill in the gray areas that we have chosen. The most useful feature of this tool is that it does not just remove the areas of the same color, but makes semi-transparent colors neighboring that have the same color scheme.

Now to make it more realistic to add a small shadow. Click with the right of “Level 1” and select “Alpha to Selection“, as before:

And we select “Drop Shadow” from the menu “Luci ed ombre“:

The settings will enter these:

Drop Shadow

Now select the “Level 2” and we set the opacity to 50% using the appropriate tool in the Layers dialog:

Slider opacità

Click with the right always on “Level 2” and once again select “Alpha to Selection“. Now we use a filter called “Whirl and Pinch“. We use this filter to give a’reflection effect our water:

With the following options:

Whirl and Pinch

And here's to you final result:

P.S. Following the screencast in the displacement map.

At the next tutorial!