Water splash

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I have often seen photo's where items have been dropped into water and not known if it is real or photoshopped. One way to find this out and also learn a new skill was to try myself. I found a blog that showed about water and how to manipulate a page to show a flow going in and splashing back.
These three pictures show a quick explanation of how I reached the final image.

1) The water itself, background white blending with a circular gradient to grey/blue. The impact area should be where the gradient is white so make a horizontal blue box here and then manipulate the top with warp, smudge or anything else you like to soften the edge.

2) This image is a layer created using filter and then fibres, pull this into the splash shape, add a slight Gaussian and motion blue with it splaying out at the edges.

3) Final image, use fibers but with dark blue rather than black, twist this around using distort and warp. I also used an overlay for this to darken it slightly, remember to place this later behind. The top of the water must also be edited with a similar method, add a couple of light spots and blur/blend with the blue and fiber layer. make sure to delete the centre where the splash has hit.

3.

The Final Image

I hope this is a quick rough guide to see how to manipulate water.