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STEAM & VAPOR

In stark contrast to the relatively easy tasks of photo correction and photo manipulation, adding natural
elements to your images can be fraught with problems. Unlike their hard-edged counterparts, steam has
an almost ethereal quality which can be hard to replicate, and even more difficult to blend seamlessly into
your images. With the following technique, however, you will learn a simple method for creating realistic
steam using nothing except Photoshop's in-built filters and your own internal attention to detail.
Step 1: Open up a stock image in
Photoshop of any size and/or
format. Please note that the image
to my right was grabbed from the
excellent SXC.HU archive - where
there are tons of high quality
pictures available for free!
NB. When choosing a stock image,
remember that steam forms more
easily
in colder and wetter
climates. Nothing would look more
ridiculous than fake steam being
formed in the bright sunlight of the
desert from something as small as
a coffee cup. To this end you may
need to alter the color balance of
your stock image to make the light
appear colder... but I will leave this
step up to you!

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Step 2: Using the Rectangular

Marquee Tool and with the
Feather setting set to 25px, create
a feathered section above your
object.
Then, with the cursor
keys, move the selection into the
centre of your canvas.
This
positioning is only temporary, and
stops
your
artificial
steam
overflowing the canvas as it is
created, which can cause a
massive amount of problems later.
NB. The size of the Feather value
depends entirely on the resolution
of your stock image.
In my
example,
the
image
was
650x1000 pixels. If you have a
bigger or smaller image you may
want to increase or decrease the
size
of
your
Feather
value
accordingly.

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BioRUST.com :: Tutorials >> Steam & Vapor

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file:///F:/_04_FAPF/_TUTORIAIS/Adobe/Photoshop/FromBuzi/Photo...

Step 3: Create a new layer called

Clouds (Layer > New > Layer),
and make it active in the layers
palette. Set your foreground and
background palette
colors
to
mid-grey and white respectively.
Then, with the selection from step
2 still active, apply Filter > Render
> Clouds.
This forms the basis of the steam,
but to make it a little more realistic
we need to add Filter > Blur >
Motion Blur. Set the Angle to -90
and the Distance to 160px (or
more if you have a bigger image).
Press OK to finalize the effect.
You should now lose your selection
by either clicking on the canvas or
selecting Select > Deselect from
the main menu.

Step 4: Steam is, of course, very

mobile and moves around with
even the lightest of air currents. To
recreate this natural phenomenon
we can use Filter > Distort >
Wave with the settings on the left.
As with the clouds filter, the results
can be highly volatile and it is
absolutely impossible to create the
exact same shape twice.
My
advice is to play around freely with
the settings and see what you can
create.
If you have an obvious source of
air currents in your picture (i.e. an
open window next to the object
that is emitting steam), then you
may
want
to use
Edit
>
Transform > Distort to mimic the
effect of massive air movements.

Step 5:
Our steam is looking
much more realistic already, but to
breathe real life into it we now need
to alter the layer blending mode to
Hard Light and the Opacity to
90%. Once you have done this,
use the Move Tool to place the
steam back above the steaming
object, and then whip out the
Eraser Tool to get rid of any
steam which may be overhanging
(i.e. in my example, this would be
steam showing BELOW the cup's
edge).

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file:///F:/_04_FAPF/_TUTORIAIS/Adobe/Photoshop/FromBuzi/Photo...

Step 6: And here is the finished

result!
The effect is subtle yet
realistic - just like proper steam!
At this point you are finished, but if
you want to a stronger and even
more erratic steam effect you can
go a little further.
To do this,
duplicate the Clouds layer (Layer >
Duplicate
Layer),
drop
the
duplicate layer's Opacity to 60%,
and flip the steam with Edit >
Transform > Flip Horizontal.
Then all that's needed is a little
manual adjustment with the Move
Tool and you have even better
steam.

- Tutorial written by Man1c M0g

Automatic Translations:

LAST 5 USER COMMENTS

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User: Andantonius (#24985)

Date: Sun Mar 12, 2006. 04:43:19

Post #1 of 1

I tried this out, really awesome work, so fast and perfect in results. It gets a 110% in my book, fast,
simple, effective, and usefull.
Reply to this post
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