underwater

Underwater Photography by Elena Kalis

AoiroStudio — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 18:05:21 +0000

Being underwater is such a limitless and free experience. The silence and emptiness of your surrounding becomes your own little space. Russian Photographer Elena Kalis is known for creating this effect within her photography.

Now based in the Bahamas, Elena is pursuing her captivating passion by exploring the underwater and taking awe-inspiring pictures for the viewing pleasure of our eyes. You can check more work of Elena Kalis on her website at ElenaKalisPhoto.com .

Underwater Carousel from Elena Kalis on Vimeo.

About the author

My name's François Hoang and my alias's Aoiro Studio. I am a self-taught freelance graphic designer from Montreal, Canada. I've been designing for the last 4 years and really have a huge passion for creative work that makes a difference in our world. If you wanna requests some posts; I can be found on Twitter or feel free to contact me.

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Surf & Underwater Photography by Sarah Lee

paul0v2 — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:56:39 +0000

Sarah Lee is from Kona on the big island of Hawaii, and she has taken some of the most amazing photos I've ever seen. Underwater shots are simply awesome and the surf action is just as good. Seeing this shots on these amazing beaches will definitely make you wish you were there. Enjoy!

To find out more about Sarah Lee visit her website www.vivantvie.com, her flickr, twitter, and facebook.

About the author

Hi there! I'm Paulo Canabarro, 26 year old web designer - paulocanabarro.com I'm from Brazil currently living and working out of Providence RI, USA. I'm truly passionate about design of all kinds, finding and sharing inspiration here has become part of my life. If you like to know more about me or get in touch visit my website paulocanabarro.com Stock me at Twitter and Dribbble

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Old to Young Case Study in Photoshop by Cassio Braga

guest — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 02:58:14 +0000

Reading the comments about the Photoshop Battle and I noticed the a lot of people were interested in knowing and seeing the images that were created during the event. Because of that I decided to recreate one of the images I did in my first battle, which was my favorite. This time however I had more time to pay attention to some details, in the event we had only 30 minutes to come up with an idea and make it come true.

So as I mentioned before this image, I will present in this case study, was created in my first duel and the subject was water. I really like the result because besides the visual strength it has a simple idea that makes us wonder and think about life and aging.

Video of the Photoshop Battle

Abduzeedo - Battle of Photoshop from Alexandre Guterres on Vimeo.

For the whole composition I used 6 other images as you can see in the case study that follows now.

Step 1

The first image I selected was a photo of a little girl that we have taken last year in the end of a photo session back in the studio where I work, StudioMe. I chose this image because I really like the expression on her face, she is only 7 years old but was very comfortable in front of the camera.

Right after this I placed the girl’s photo in my composition I selected a photo of an old lady that was taken again in another photo session at StudioMe.

Step 2

Incredibly the two images matched pretty well one I put one over the other, so all I have to do was to create a good transition between the two faces right below the nose line. This transition was done simply by putting the image of the girl in a layer beneath the old lady layer in which I added a layer mask and hid the layer. Then with a very soft brush I started to make some areas visible, but very smoothly and natural.

In order to make the transition very realistic I made some adjustments using the Liquify filter to move the nose a little bit down on the face of the girl.

After that I did a color adjustment to make the hue of the skin of both photos match. To do that I used some Adjustment Layers such as Curves and Vibrance.

Step 3

The next step I started to create the mood for the composition, sort of like how I would like to perceive the idea behind the composition. To do that I created a selection to separate the top from the bottom part. For the top part I created this sort of vignette effect to driver the user attention to the face, like the focal point. For the bottom part, I just did some color adjustments to make sure that the girl really looked as if she was underwater.

Step 4

To make the scene more realistic, specially the underwater part, it was necessary to add some light effects. So in this part of the process I looked for an image to create the caustics effect.

In optics, a caustic or caustic network is the envelope of light rays reflected or refracted by a curved surface or object, or the projection of that envelope of rays on another surface. The caustic is a curve or surface to which each of the light rays is tangent, defining a boundary of an envelope of rays as a curve of concentrated light. Therefore in the image to the right, the caustics can be the patches of light or their bright edges. These shapes often have cusp singularities.

To add some depth I applied a blur to the caustic effect and I also added some blurry air bubbles. Still I thought the image needed even more depth. So I added a layer and applied a render clouds and after that used the Gaussian Blur to make it super blurry, enough to give the idea that the background wasn’t empty.

Now for the underwater part I created a sort of inverted the illumination. To do that I used a Curves Adjustment Layer in which I pulled all the channels up increasing the brightness of the image. I also Inverted the mask to hide this adjustment and then with a very soft brush I started make the layer visible, that way the transition would be much more smooth.

Step 5

The bubbles in the water made the difference in terms of realism. This part took me more time because I had to do some testing. To make the effect as realistic as possible the bubbles needed to reflect the rest of the image, but a little bit darker. However I didn’t like the result of none of the images I was testing, only after quite a lot of time I found the image I was looking for, with some subtle air bubbles. Even though the image might not be the most coherent in terms of photography and with the composition, in my humble opinion they were the ones that created the best effect. Those little bubbles really give this ideas that they are making the aging process turning the old lady into a child.

Technically speaking, the bubble layers were a layer with a very light background with the bubbles, so I simply inverted it and change the Blend Mode to Screen. In case you don’t know, the Scree mode hides all black pixels of the layer.

Still in this step I selected the lenses of the glasses of the old lady layer and then applied a blueish gradient as if it was reflecting the water. The gradient layer was created on top of the old lady layer and then I applied the Soft Light Blend Mode.

Step 6

Here the process was almost done, just some fine tunes and little tweaks. I added some bright spots on the water surface, change the color of the old lady eyes to a more blueish tone and applied a Smart Sharpen only in the top part, that way the two parts would match a little better. The last thing I did here was to apply a Photo Filter Adjustment Layer with blue with 10% of Transparency on top all the other layers. That way all layers would sort of get better blended together.

Step 7

The whole process to create this image took me like 10 hours, however a good amount of this time was just testing different images trying to find the best ones.

I hope you like this case study and that it may help you. Feedback is always appreciated, so feel free to share your opinion with comments and tweets.

About the Author

Cassio Braga is an art director and digital artist from Candelária, RS, but currently based in Porto Alegre. He is graduated in advertising from ESPM and have already worked for some big Porto Alegre agencies such as Escala and DCS. Currently working at StudioMe.

Underwater Scene in Pixelmator

abduzeedo — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 11:21:31 +0000

In this tutorial, I will show you how to create an underwater scene as inspired by the opening titles of I, Robot, the movie. We will create a brush that will be used to add the bubbles and explore a technique to make your scenes look more realistic. The whole process is quite simple, and it takes less than 1 hour to go through all the steps.

Step 1

Open Pixelmator and create a new document, the one I’m using is 1440×900 pixels. After that, fill the background layer with black.?

Step 2

Add a new layer and fill it with a dark green (#12241f).

Step 3

Go to Layer>Add Layer Mask. After that, select the thumb of the mask in the Layer Palette and go to Filter>Generator>Clouds. Use black and white for the colors and apply the clouds on the layer mask.?

Step 4

With the layer mask still selected, go to Filter>Blur>Zoom Blur. Move the controller point to the bottom center of the image and use 60 for the amount. This will create a really nice effect.

Step 5

Add another layer and then with the Brush Tool (B) select a red/pink color (#941433). Then, paint a large spot in the bottom and center of the design like I did in the image below.?

Step 6

Repeat steps 3 and 4 and then apply the render filter to the mask and the zoom blur, respectively.

Step 7

Add a new layer on top of the others and fill it in with black. Change the Blending to Color Dodge, and then with the Brush Tool (B) and a soft brush with white, paint a little white spot at the bottom and center of the design. Then, repeat the previous step for the mask.?

Step 8

Reduce the opacity to 80% if your light effect gets too bright.

Step 9

Add another layer, then, using the Brush Tool (B) again, select a large soft brush and dark blue to paint some blue spots right on and above the red/pink light. This blue layer has to be very subtle; I used the brush with 25% only. After that, you can apply the Zoom Blur again with the same amount as we did in the previous steps, 60.

Step 10

To create the bubbles, I used a stock photo courtesy of Shutterstock. You can find it at http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-31147426/stock-photo-beautiful-abstract-background-of-soap-bubbles-on-black.html. I used the guides for reference and then with the Rectangular Marquee Tool (M), change the option to Ellipse and select the bubble you want to use for your brush. Copy and paste it to a new layer, and then go to Image > Desaturate, then Image > Invert.?

Step 11

Creating the brush is pretty simple; just drag the layer from the Layer Palette to the Brushes Palette. Pixelmator will automatically create the new brush. Double click on it to edit, and then change the Spacing to 200% and the Scatter to 65%. Over the Shape Jitter options, change the Size to 100% and the stroke to 7%.?

Step 12

Add a new layer and fill it with black using the Paint Bucket Tool (N). Change the Blending to Color Dodge. Select the Brush Tool (B) and the brush you created in the previous step. Paint some bubbles onto your design using white.?

Step 13

Select the Blur Tool (R) and a big soft brush. Start making some bubbles blurrier than the others to add some depth to your design.?

Step 14

Add another layer on top of the others, and using the Paint Bucket Tool (N), fill it with black. Change the Blending to Color Dodge, and then use the Brush Tool (B) and the bubble brush we created to paint some big bubbles, much larger than the previous one. I used 700 for the brush size this time and 300 for the previous one.?

Step 15

Now, import another photo to add more realism to the composition. I’m using another image from Shutterstock, which you can find here at http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-24003511/stock-photo-water-splashing-forming-air-bubbles-over-a-black-background.html.?

Step 16

With the image in your document, first, go to Image > Desaturate, and then change the Blending to Color Dodge. You will also have to resize and position the image to how you want it. I flipped the image I used vertically.?

Step 17

Select all layers and duplicate them. Merge all duplicated layers and go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur. Use 20 for the blur amount.?

Step 18

Change the Blending to Screen and the Opacity to 50%.?

Step 19

Duplicate the blurry layer and then change the Blending to Overlay, while keeping the Opacity at 50%.?

Conclusion

Now, just add your logo and the scene is practically done. If you want, you can add another layer on top and fill it with the Stripes filter. Then, rotate it to get some horizontal lines to simulate those scan lines from old TVs, but that is another story for another tutorial.

Download the Pixelmator File

Click here to download the Pixelmator file used for this tutorial

About the author

Abduzeedo is a blog about design. There are all sorts of articles for those who want to look for inspiration. Also you will find very useful tutorials for the most used applications out there, with a special selection of Photoshop Tutorials and Illustrator Tutorials. You can get in follow us via Twitter at @abduzeedo

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Simple Underwater Scene in Photoshop

abduzeedo — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 11:03:09 +0000

A few weeks ago I received an email from a reader asking me if I could write a tutorial showing an underwater scene. I have written some tutorials on this subject like the 3D type made out of water or the underwater scene for Digital Arts in 2008. However I was watching TV this weekend when I started to watch I, Robot. The opening titles of that movie is awesome and really inspired me to write this tutorial.

In this tutorial I will show you how to create a underwater scene with some bubbles and light effects. We will use the Brush Tool to create the bubbles and basic tools and filters for the rest of the effects. The whole process won't take more than 45 minutes and as usual you can download the Photoshop file in the end of the tutorial.

Step 1

Open Photoshop and create a new document, I'm using 2560x1440 pixels so I can use it as wallpaper. After that fill the background layer with black.

Step 2

Add another layer and fill it with green (234b44)

Step 3

With the green layer selected go to Layer>Group Layer. The layer will be inside a folder in the Layer Palette. Select this folder and go to Layer>Layer Mask>Hide All. Select the Brush Tool (B) and, with a big soft brush, paint with white over the areas you want to be shown,

Step 4

Select the green layer now and go to Layer>Layer Mask>Reveal All. Over the layer palette, select the mask of the layer and go to Filter>Render>Clouds. You will apply the clouds into the mask. After that, still with the mask selected, go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur. Use a big value, I used 80px for the Radius but this value will vary depending on the size of your document.

Step 5

Add another layer on top of the others and with the Brush Tool (B) and a very soft brush, paint a red spot light like I did in the image below. Change the Opacity of this layer to 65% as well.

Step 6

Add another layer on top of the others and then again with the Brush Tool (B) and the big brush you used before, select now a dark blue and paint some areas above the red. This blue has to be very subtle, so change the Opacity to 20-30%.

Step 7

Add another layer and then select the Gradient Tool (G). Click on the gradient colors to open the Gradient Editor, then change the Type to Noise, the Roughness to 100% and select both Options: Restrict Colors and Add Transparency.

Fill the layer with the gradient and then go to Image>Adjustments>Desaturate. After that go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur. I used 30 pixels for the Radius, but once again this value will change depending on the size of your document.

Step 8

Just change the Blend Mode of the layer with the noise gradient to Color Dodge.

Step 9

For the bubbles I created a brush using a photo for reference. The photo I used was courtesy of Shutterstock and you can download it here. You can also download the brush I created here.

Add a new layer and then select the Brush Tool (B) and then using a big size, I used 400 pixels, paint some bubbles using white for the color. Group this layer (Layer>Group Layers) and change the Blend Mode of the Folder to Color Dodge.

Step 10

Select the layer with the bubbles and go to Filter>Convert for Smart Filters. Then go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Bur. Use 7 pixels for the Radius. The whole layer will get blurry, but notice that there is a sub layer with a white thumb called Smart Filters. Select the Brush Tool (B), with black for the color and start painting over the bubbles you don't want them to be blurry. It's like a maks for the smart filters.

Step 11

Import your logo and go to Layer>Layer Styles>Blending Options. Change the Fill to 0, then select Inner Glow. Use Color Dodge for the Color, 50% for the Opacity and change the Size to 15pixels. After that select Bevel and Emboss. Use Inner Bevel for the Style, 90% for the Depth, Down for the Direction, 1 pixel for the Size, 5 pixels for the Soften. For the Shading options use 70º for the Ange and 16º for the Altitude. For the Highlight and Shadow Modes use Color Dodge with white for the colors and 100% Opacity.

Step 12

Add another layer, you can add it inside the folder of the other layer with Bubbles, the one we created in the step 9. With the Brush Tool (B) and the bubble brush, this time with a much smaller size, paint some bubbles over the A, B, Ds and O like the word would be disintegrating into bubbles.

Step 13

Select the text layer and go to Layer>Layer Mask>Reveal All. With the Brush Tool (B) and soft brush with black paint over the areas that the text would be disintegrating into bubbles (1-6)

Step 14

Select the bubbles layer the one that is over the text and the repeat the same technique we did on the Step 10 to make some parts of the layer blurrier than other areas.

Step 15

Add a layer on top of the others and go to Filter>Render>Clouds. Make sure you had black and white for the background and foreground colors. After that go to Filter>Render>Difference Clouds. The layer will be very dark, so go to Image>Adjustments>Invert, then go to Image>Adjustment>Levels. Increase the white input until you have an image like the one below.

Step 16

Change the Blend Mode to Color Dodge and go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur. Use 20 pixels for the Radius. You can also reduce the Opacity to 60%.

Step 17

To give more realism to the composition you can add some real bubbles, here I'm using a photo that is courtesy of Shutterstock and you can find it here. As you can see the photo has black background, in this case, change the Blend Mode to Color Dodge so the black becomes transparent.

Step 18

Once again you can convert the layer with the stock photo of bubbles to smart objects and then apply Gaussian Blur and paint of the areas you want to keep them without blur like we did on the Step 10.

Step 19

Add a layer on top of the others and then select the Paint Bucket Tool (G). Change the type to Pattern, then select the stripes pattern that I have created, you can download it here.

Fill the layer with the pattern and go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur. Use 2 pixels for the Radius, then change the Blend Mode to Overlay and the Opacity to 50%.

Conclusion

The idea of this tutorial was to show you how to create a sort of underwater scene using basic tools like brushes and gradients combined with simple filters like blur and clouds. The whole process is pretty simple and you can now create some really nice wallpapers as well.

Click on the image for full preview.

Another Example

Download the Photoshop File

Click here to download the Photoshop files used for this tutorial

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About the author

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Amazing Underwater Portraits

PauloGabriel — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 11:41:42 +0000

Ok, this one I didn't expect: yesterday, during my daily walkthrough various sites, I ran into something that I never paid any attention: underwater portraits. These are truly amazing and you should check them out.

Underwater photography in general is very interesting. It's somewhat misterious, since it is set somewhere no humans live in. There's really not much to talk about, all we have to do is to look at these and imagine. They are really amazing. And by any chance, does any of you got underwater pictures, portraits, or whatever? If you do, share it with us! We'd love to see some more. Hope you like these... cheers! ;)

javiy

Georgia Wiggs

Radio_138

Preckie RN

Rhea Q

p_j_laney

Elena Kalis

About the author

Hello, everyone! I'm Paulo Gabriel, designer from Porto Alegre, Brazil, born in 1984. I have worked as a webdesigner since 2006, but websites and blogs have been a hobby for me since 1999. Here in Abduzeedo, I try to bring only the hot stuff for you... and hope that all of you enjoy my posts! For more cool stuff, you may also follow me on Twitter.

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Stunning Underwater Fashion Photography

GisMullr — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 11:36:49 +0000

Continuing my research about photography and its different formats I found some pretty nice underwater fashion photos that I would like to share here. I really like this technique because it shows the photographers talent and also the model capacity of standing still to provide the best close to the image. My modeling experience is nonexistent, but I believe that taking a photo underwater must be a hard task. :)

Please check out further images, making of videos and techniques details at Mick Gleissner website (http://www.mgleiss.com). You can also find several other photos, information and curiosity about this way of photographing at the following websites I've used to find some of these great work. So, check them out:

As Mick Gleissner mention at his website: " Combine one man's passion for diving and photography with his fascination for fashion and beautiful women..." and you will have great underwater fashion photography.

About the author

Someone with a bachelor degree in Foreign Trade that really likes technology, design, photography and creativity. A person ‘digging’ a new way as a ‘geek apprentice’, blogger 'wanna be' and a communication lover! Current location: Porto Alegre, RS – Brazil
Twitter user: gismullr