Liquify command is a new image distortion tool in Photoshop 6 (Image>Liquify)

• Liquify gives you more control than filters, because it lets you distort parts of the image with a brush
• You select the brush size and pressure
• If you want to limit the area in which you can apply liquify, select part of the image -- the unselected part will be frozen
• There is also a freeze tool on the left of the Liquify window that lets you freeze parts of the image in the Liquify window.

Distortion tools on the left side of the window:

• Warp pushes pixels forward as you drag.
• Twirl clockwise rotates pixels clockwise as you hold down the mouse button or drag.
• Twirl counterclockwise rotates pixels counterclockwise as you hold down the mouse button or drag.
• Pucker moves pixels toward the center of the brush area as you hold down the mouse button or drag.
• Bloat moves pixels away from the center of the brush area as you hold down the mouse button or drag.
• Shift pixels moves pixels perpendicular to the stroke direction.
  • Drag to move pixels to the left, and Alt-drag (Windows) to move pixels to the right.
• Reflection copies pixels to the brush area.
  • Drag to reflect the area perpendicular to the direction of the stroke (to the left of the stroke).
  • Alt-drag to reflect the area in the direction opposite to that of the stroke.
  • Freeze the area you want to reflect.
  • Use overlapping strokes to create an effect similar to a reflection in water
• Reconstruct provides a variety of controls and reconstruction modes to reverse changes or redo the changes in new ways. Reconstruction modes include
  • reverting to the original state
  • extending distortions in frozen areas into unfrozen areas
  • repeating distortions sampled from a starting point
• Freeze protects an area in the preview image from further editing
  • Select the tool and drag over the area.
  • Shift-click to freeze in a straight line between the current point and the previous point that you clicked or Shift-clicked
  • If the frozen areas mask is displayed, the tint of the mask indicates the degree of freezing.
    • If the brush pressure is less than 100%, fully freeze an area by dragging more than once.
    • If the brush is less than 100% the distortion on the half-frozen area will be less than on the unfrozen area
• Thaw makes a frozen area editable.
  • Select the thaw tool and drag over the area.
  • Shift-click to thaw in a straight line between the current point and the previous point that you clicked or Shift-clicked.
  • Brush pressure has the same effect on the thaw tool as it has on the freeze tool.
    To thaw all frozen areas, click Thaw All.
    To thaw all frozen areas and freeze the remaining areas, click Invert.

Options on the right side of the window:

• Tool Options:
  • Brush size determines size of distortion brush
  • Brush pressure - higher value produces more pronounced effects
• Reconstruction Modes: A variety of controls and reconstruction modes reverse changes or redo the changes in new ways.
  • Revert - To change one or more unfrozen areas back to the state when you opened the Liquify dialog box,
• choose the Revert reconstruction mode from the Mode menu.
  • Select the reconstruct tool,
  • hold down the mouse button or drag over the areas.
  • Restoration occurs more quickly at the brush center.
  • To change all unfrozen areas back to their state when you opened the Liquify dialog box, choose the Revert reconstruction mode from the Mode menu, and click the Reconstruct button.
• Rigid - Rigid maintains right angles in the pixel grid (as shown by the warp mesh) at the edges between frozen and unfrozen areas,
• Stiff acts like a weak magnetic field. At the edges between frozen and unfrozen areas, the unfrozen areas continue the distortions in the frozen areas. As the distance from frozen areas increases, the distortions lessen.
• Smooth propagates the distortions in frozen areas throughout unfrozen areas, with smoothly continuous distortions
• Loose produces effects similar to Smooth, with even greater continuity between distortions in frozen and unfrozen areas
• Displace reconstructs unfrozen areas to match the displacement at the starting point for the reconstruction.
• Amplitwist reconstructs unfrozen areas to match the displacement, rotation, and overall scaling that exist at the starting point.
• Affine reconstructs unfrozen areas to match all local distortions that exist at the starting point, including displacement, rotation, horizontal and vertical scaling, and skew
• Reconstruct reconstructs all unfrozen areas
• Revert restores the entire preview image to its state when you opened the dialog box.

Freeze Area

• Channel
• Invert
• Thaw all

View Options

• Show frozen areas
• show image
• show mesh
  • Mesh size: Small, Medium, Large
  • Mesh color from dropdown list
  • Freeze color from dropdown list

In Photoshop, open fish.psd, a photo with rounded shapes, from the 421images folder

• Change the image size of the file to 6 inches wide (with constrain proportions checked)
• Do Filter>unsharp mask
• Save the image as fishsmall.psd
• Click Image>liquify to open the photo in the liquify window.
• Experiment with different distortion tools to change the image
• When you are satisfied, click OK to render the changes on the original file.

In Photoshop, open bookstore.psd, a photo with rectangular shapes, from the 421images folder

• Change the image size to 72 dpi -- without constrain proportions checked.
• Do Filter>unsharp mask
• Save the image as bookstore72dpi.psd
• Click Image>liquify to open the photo in the liquify window.
• Experiment with different distortion tools to change the image
• When you are satisfied, click OK to render the changes on the original file.

In Photoshop, open face.jpg and click Image>Liquify

• Select the pucker tool, with brush size of 60 pixels and pressure about 50% - makes area smaller
  • Reduce the size of the eyes
• Select the bloat tool, with brush size of 40 pixels and pressure about 50% - makes area smaller
  • Enlarge the nostril areas, then the center of the nose
  • Freeze any areas that you do not want to distort
• Freeze the nose area & choose the Warp tool (brush size 80 pixels)
  • Drag the corners of the mouth up
• Change brush size to 100 and pull the cheeks out and chin down
• Continue to distort the image.
• Use the reconstruct tool on the left to change pixels back
• The reconstruct button on the right reverts to the original
• When you are finished, click ok to see the changes rendered on the image.