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Create Awesome Splashing Water Text Effect in Photoshop

By 6 Mins Read

In this tutorial, I will show you the steps I took to Create Awesome Splashing Water Text Effect in Photoshop. Along the way, you will learn how you can incorporate water splash brushsets into your text and create great effect from that. Have a try!

Here is a preview of the final effect for this tutorial: (click to enlarge)

Having difficulty with Step 4 and 5 of this tutorial? Check out this video tutorial below:

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OK let’s get started!

To complete this tutorial, you will need the following stocks:

Water Splashing Brush (choose one from the list)

Lake

Font

Step 1

Create a new document sized 940px * 700px, fill the background layer with black. Load the Lake stock image into Photoshop, use the Lasso Tool with a 40px feather setting, draw a selection of the lake portion:

Copy and paste the selection on to our canvas, use a big soft brush to erase its edges, and reduce its layer opacity to around 60%. The effect is as shown below:

Duplicate the water layer twice, move the duplicated layer to the left and right of the original water layer, as shown below: (set the layer opacity to slightly lower than the original water layer to create depth)

Duplicate the original water layer once more, resize it to a smaller piece and position it to the center, then increase the layer opacity to 100%:

Add the following two adjustment layers on top of all layers created so far:

Curves

Levels

and you will have the following effect so far: (centre portion highlighted, and that is where the text is to be placed)

Step 2

Now use any font you like, type a single letter on the canvas as shown below:

Apply the following layer blending options to this text layer:

Bevel and Emboss

Gradient Overlay

Stroke

and here is the effect so far:

Step 3

Now let’s add some noise to the text and get ready for the water splashing effect later on. Create a new layer on top of the text called “noise”, load the selection of the text layer and fill the selection with black colour, go to Filter > Noise > Add Noise and apply the following setting:

The effect after you apply the noise filter:

Change the blending mode of thie noise layer to “screen”, drop the layer opacity to around 35%, you will have the following effect:

Create a new layer on top of the noise layer, name it “light and shadow”, use a combination of black and white brush, paint it as shown below:

Change the blending mode of this light and shadow layer to “Overlay” – as you can see, this add some lighting contrast to the text:

Step 4

Now we can paint some water splashing effect around text. Create a new layer called “water splash” and load the water splash brushes into Photoshop, choose some brushes from the set and paint around the text, as shown below:

Make sure when you paint the water splashing effect, use a combination of big and small sized brushsets, also adjust the flow and opacity of the brush, DO NOT just use one setting for the whole thing:

Keep adding more water splashing around the text – to be more creative, paint some water streams dropping from the edges of the text:

For the water streams, I used a 6px, soft white brush to paint in addition to the water splashing brush, as shown below:

 

Use the same technique to paint the water stream on the left:

You can use a small, soft white brush to draw around the edge of the text to create some waterflow/highlight effect:

Highlight effect for the text edges:

here is the effect you will be aiming to achieve so far:

Step 5

Now we will make the water splash around the text sharpen a bit. To do this, duplicate the water splash layer you’re painting on once (if you have searval layers for the water splash, group them first, then right-click on the group and choose “merge group” option).

Apply the following Smart Sharpen filter setting to the duplicated layer:

and you can see the water splash sharpened and become more visible:

Now create a new layer called “shadow” under the original text layer, grab a black soft brush and paint some shadow on the water and under the text, as shown below:

Optionally, you can add more water splashing effect around the text:

To make the text effect more dramatic, you can add some misty effect by create a new layer named “mist” just above the background layer, use a Lasso Tool with 50px feather, draw a selection around the text as shown below:

Render some cloud inside the selection, drop the layer opacity of this mist layer to around 50%, and you will have the following misty effect:

Step 6

Now we’re into the final stage of this tutorial. I feel like adding some highlights around the text, so as to make the certain parts stand out. To do this, create a new light on top of all previous layers, use a small white soft brush to paint (single-click) to the points shown below:

Now you can also use the Distort option (available when you press Ctrl + T, then right-click) to adjust the shape of the light, to fit the angel of the latter:

I added one Color Balance image adjustment layer just to add a bit more light blue colour into the image:

Layer Mask on the Color Balance adjustment layer:

and you will have the following final effect:

OK that’s it for this tutorial! Hope you enjoy it and find it useful and inspirational. If you have any question, drop a comment below and I will try my best to help you out.

Cheers and have a nice day!

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James is a seasoned Photoshop expert with over 25 years of experience based in Australia. As the driving force behind PSD Vault, he authors the majority of its in-depth tutorials and insightful articles.

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139 Comments

  3. Dianna on

    Great tutorial! I really like the water splashing, especially in the heat of summer. Can hardly wait to give it a try.

  7. Martin on

    This is an excellent tutorial with an excellent result. Beautifull work, and it gave me some good ideas for some projects by using parts of this tutorial:-).

    Thanks!

  16. Claudia on

    Love the tutorial, but I cant seem to get nice splashes, I tried different sizes, opacities and flow, but it all looks way different from the picture in the tut… Anyone any suggestions what I did wrong? Or sumthing I can try to make it look better?

  20. Manali on

    This is an excellent tutorial Beautiful work, and it gave me some good ideas for some projects by using parts of this tutorial but I cant seem to get nice splashes, I tried different sizes, opacities and flow, but it all looks way different from the picture in this… So tell me how to solve this problem…

    Thanks!

  23. sofia on

    I just tried this guide and it worked just great. Thanks for this, I am going to read a few more pages here now.

  24. babydoll63 on

    I just finished and was inspired to do have the water running off of my G. But for my letter I couldn’t get the effect I was supposed to get. Thanks for the great tut!

  30. Anarchy on

    How do you do step 3? I can’t make the text selection – where abouts is this? i forget :(
    Thanks

  34. Deep on

    Great tutorial man, thanks for sharing.
    But i cant seem to make a exact one like this, i donno what i am doing wrong. :(
    Can you make one with the letter “E” & mail it to me, please, i need something like this so much.

    ~ThankZ~

  36. midori on

    i’m thinking if the effects/design will also fit in with a 4-letter text but in vertical position.. i’m gonna go experiment. thanks again!

  37. HBK on

    This looks sick man, thanks for the tut. I tried with the tut & it was so far ok, but not as same as this one.
    There should be an option like if an user want to buy any particular PSD file then he can buy it. If there is, do let me know admin, i will like to buy the PSD of this file. Currently no money for the VIP. :(

  49. James Qu on

    @Spencer: If you look at the publishing date of that article on brusheezy, it’s on Aug 20, 2010, almost 1 month later than my tutorial post date.

  68. James Qu on

    @jpel: the link probably expired. i will see if I can find a different one and post it here.

  69. Tom on

    Brilliant tutorial, but the link for the brushes doesn’t work. Do you know where I can find them? I really want to use those brushes! Haha. :)

  74. ian on

    Now let’s add some noise to the text and get ready for the water splashing effect later on. Create a new layer on top of the text called “noise”, load the selection of the text layer and fill the selection with black colour, go to Filter > Noise > Add Noise and apply the following setting

    HEY GUY’S COULD HELP ME . SORRY BUT I DONT UNDERSTAND THIS LINE. NEWBIE . I JUST STARTED.

  75. Rod Larkins on

    Greetings everyone:
    I was wanting to know if someone could create this graphic for me with the word: WELL
    I am pastor of the Well Church and have been looking for a graphic logo that would fit our church and when i saw this i was blown away.
    I do not have photoshop and am really not good at graphics design.
    Can anyone help me?
    if so you can contact me anytime by email…

  82. Alex on

    hi, I downloaded the 38-brush set. but what next? what should I do then? I would really appriciate if you could help me out on this one. If it helps out in any way, my laptop is from school. So it maybe because of some restictions, but idk. I would love if you could help me, want to get better at photoshop, and this is absolutely wonderful :)

  86. Ben on

    im sorry, but i got stuck on step 3…
     
    “Now let’s add some noise to the text and get ready for the water splashing effect later on. Create a new layer on top of the text called “noise”, load the selection of the text layer and fill the selection with black colour, go to Filter > Noise > Add Noise and apply the following setting”

    i created a new layer and called it ‘noise’, but what do you mean by ‘load the selection of the text layer’?

    on the ‘noise’ layer, i went straight to add noise but it says “Could not complete the Add Noise command because the selection area is empty”

    help? thanks so much. this effect is amazing!

  92. Cleoalex on

    I got stuck on this at first but instead of creating a new layer, duplicate the text layer you have. Then after this click on blending options and deselect every option. Then you need to change this layers text colour to black. And then you can add the ‘noise’ effect. Hope this has helped :)

  95. hishhishA on

    he said load the selection and add black color then you add noise. I think you didn’t fill it with black.

  100. Kobe on

    ผมชอบมาก น่าสนใจคุณทำเหมือนมันง่าย

  103. Vacume_presure on

    please also give steps for adjustment layer (last step)
    many thanks for sharing a wonderful article :)

  104. Guest on

    seems that author wants is feeling feeling proud after creating this article and has disappeared so that people keep praising for what he has done which. He has shared incomplete steps, wants to hold back the hidden facts so that people keep pleading… “pls i beg u, share the full steps” this something which he perhaps wants to read in every post before he reveals all the steps :)
    Thanks but no thanks

  105. PSD Vault on

    Hi there, point taken :) however, you must understand that when writing a tutorial there are a lot of things simply can’t be explained in every detail, but require the user to experiment and experience themselves. I always try and explain the best as I can.

    BTW, I’m the author :)

  107. Cefort on

    Super tq! This is a real good tutorial, esp since I’m just a beginner at this kind of thing! I even managed to apply it on my small personal project called Element (just trying to apply typo-photoshop to the 4 elements…). Here’s the link if u want to see: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.381516325227103.90475.100001062160401&type=1

  110. bouldenater on

    how do i load the brushes i downloaded them so how do i atually get them?

  112. bouldenater on

    painting the water is too hard it does not make sense im not using the letter S im using my xbox 360 new name Blinderr and the splashes suck i cant fuckin do it

  113. Carla Medina on

    Hi thanks for the tutorial! but I have a lil’ problem over here I am stuck on the last part of the step #3 can you please give me a quick explanation of how to do it?

  114. Govind on

    this is very helpful for expert and student
    I m working as a Multimedia Faculty in an Computer InstituteGovind PrasadNew Delhi India. 

  117. Nipun on

    Very nice…! Option some gr8 work many more different 3D option Photoshop tutorial.

    Thanks.!

  118. Kyle on

    I could have spent like an hour less on this tutorial if you told us exactly which brushes to get and which one to use.

  119. Kyle on

    You know what, I give up, I have been looking for a brush that would satisfy me, and I can not.

  121. Andrea on

    I agree with sir PSD Vault. i am a begineer in this industry. At first, mostly in other tutorials, I find a hard time to understand and follow instructions i wanted to do. But if u keep on doing it over and over without losing hope, you might even find your work more detailed otherwise less detailed compared with this work. What Im trying to say is its all about YOU! your style and creativity. you cant blame the author for incomplete tutorials because its about how u perceive the instructions, the steps and the styles. its about THIS IS HIS STYLE but I CAN DO THIS AS MY STYLE TOO. Authors DONT HAVE TO PLEASE anyone. They have given just their share. Lets just be thankful for the one who made this that HE EVEN DOES CARE TO SHARE HIS KNOWLEDGE FOR THOSE UNGRATEFUL INDIVIDUALS. so i salute u sir and many thanks! :)

  122. Ivan on

    the effect is quite awesome. however, honestly the steps are incomplete which is hard to follow. especially the brushes that author chose. we dont even know which exact brush are you using. so i quit learning your effect on that stage, since it’s really really hard to create the water splash without correct brushes.

  132. Roger Marshall on

    Nice effect, I really like it. I would like to hire someone to do this effect for the words Finger Lakes. Its for a bottled water label. Please contact me at rmarsh1045@aol.com

  136. Susan Peuler on

    WOW! Is all I can say. It took me a while because I’m rusty with PS, but was well worth the time. Thank you GREATLY for providing this tutorial. I learned quite a bit… I’m curious, you must work on windows because most of the shortcut keys you gave were strange to me… but I downloaded a conversion (windows to mac) commands table. It was also most helpful having all the sources you went to, to create this beauty! Thanks for sharing and taking all the time to make the tutorial. Sincerely, Susan P. :) I’m looking forward to trying out more of your tutorials.

  139. Robert Southworth on

    Hi, is there any chance you can add the missing information to step 3? It doesn’t say how the noise effect settings should be or also show the drawings of how it should look so far? Amazing effect, but hard to follow a few bits of it up to step 4.