Abstracts With The Photoshop Liquify Tool
In the article Blur as an Element of Composition, I showed you how to use the Motion Blur tool in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements to take simple uninteresting (or interesting, you choose!) images and transform them into abstract art.
There is another filter that you can add to your personal arsenal of simple tools to do the same thing, create abstract studies. The Liquify tool has been in the Photoshop family for years. Its a fun filter, you can really mess with someones portrait and get a lot of laughs. I usually don’t use the filter for that though, what I like to do, is mess with images to see what kind of alternate art I can come up with.
Using the image that I created with the Motion Blur tool, I’m going to take it a step further using the Liquify filter.
1.Open your image in Photoshop or Elements
2.Create a new layer from the background (right+click, then choose Duplicate Layer). If you have other layers on top of the background, create a new layer by SHIFT+CTRL+ALT+E (Windows) or SHIFT+CMD+OPTION+E (Mac).
3.In the Filters menu, choose Liquify (or SHIFT+CTRL+X (Windows) or SHIFT+CMD+X (Mac). The Liquify windows will appear.
4.Adjust your brush size depending on how “wide” you want your liquify brush strokes to be. When just starting out, experiment. For this example, I used a brush size that was about 50% the size of the image.
5.Experiment with the Brush Density adjustment as well, it will change the liquid effect you are painting in.
6.When you’re complete, press OK, the changes will be saved to your layer.
A Tip From Kevin
Size your abstract image 20″ X 20″ at 300dpi. Have a Standout printed on Metallic Paper printed and shipped back to you from MPIX. These abstracts make for some colorful abstract art you can proudly hang in your living room.
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i don’t have a liquify tool in my photoshop cs4. can you help
Hi Linda,
The Liquify Tool is actually one of the first items in the Filter menu. You can also type SHIFT+CTRL+X (or SHIFT+CMD+X on a Mac). Good luck!