Liquify Command

Preparatlons for Exercise

Download images to work with:

• alligator
• swamp
• Before you open an image in Liquify, you should lower the image size unless you are willing to wait a long time for the changes to be made to the image when you are done.

Liquify command is an image distortion tool

• It is not really a filter like the other filters
• 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.

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Distortion tools on left side of the window:

• Forward Warp pushes pixels forward as you drag.
• 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
• Twirl clockwise rotates pixels clockwise as you hold down the mouse button or drag. Hold down ALT key to 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.
• Push Left 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.
• Mirror 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
• Turbulence Tool smoothly scrambles pixels--creates fire, clouds, waves, and similar effects.
• 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 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 mask 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.

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Distortion tools on right side of 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.

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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

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Try it

Right click on image to download it:

If you use the larger version at the top of this page (DSCN0045.JPG) then you need to lower its image size by 1/3 or 1/2 to hasten the progress of the liquify filter

In Photoshop, open the file you downloaded.

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Start Liquify tool

In Photoshop, click on the file to select it and click Filter >Liquify (Shift+Control+X)

• Select the Freeze tool and brush any part of the image you do not want to change
  • Change the brush size if necessary
  • your choice of brush size will depend on the dimensions of the image -- the larger the image, the larger the brush size.
• Select the Unfreeze tool and unfreeze some of the frozen area
• Select the Warp tool and pushes pixels forward as you drag the water.
• Selectc the Twirl clockwise tool to rotate water pixels clockwise as you hold down the mouse button or drag.
• Select the Twirl counterclockwise to rotate pixels counterclockwise as you hold down the mouse button or drag.
• Select the Pucker tool and click on a part of the alligator's body to make it pucker
• Select the Bloat tool and click on the alligator's eyes and nostrils to make them inflate.
• Select the Shift pixels tool and drag across the water.
• Reflection copies pixels to the brush area.
• Select the pucker tool, with brush size of 60 pixels and pressure about 50% - makes area smaller
  • Reduce a part of the head
• 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
  Enlarge the eyes
• Select the Warp tool to make waves in the water
• 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.

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Reflection practice

Right click on this image to download it or use the one you downloaded at the top of the page, but lower the image size.

Click the Image to select it and then click Filter>Liquify to open the Liquify window

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Select the freeze tool

• Change the brush size to about 150 or to whatever size that covers almost half the height of the photo
• change the brush pressure to 100
• Paint over the upper part of the image to freeze it -- that's the part that will show in the reflection

Select the Reflection tool

• Drag the brush from left to right
• Be careful that the Cross hairs in the middle of the brush do not stray off the image -- the result will be transparent pixels, which are not really a mirror image
• Click OK to save the results.

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