Learn How To Create A Realistic Underwater Effect In Photoshop

In this tutorial you will learn how to create a realistic underwater effect in Photoshop using various filters, lighting effects and blending techniques.
Here the recourse that you need to use to create this photo

Rocks Image 
Stones image
Fish Brushes

Step 1

Create a new document with width 950px and height 1000px. 

Now pick the ‘gradient tool’ to give gradient to your 

background.

Step 2

Create a new layer by going to Layer> New> Layer and label it 

as ‘surface’. Select some area on this layer using ‘rectangular 

marquee tool’. Use default colors, which are # 000000 as 

foreground and #ffffff as background and go to Filter> Render> 

Clouds.

Step 3

Keep this ‘surface’ layer selected and go to Filter> Artistic> 

Plastic wrap. Use the following values for plastic wrap.

Now press ‘Ctrl+T’ to resize this selected area and expand it to 

fit your canvas. Duplicate this ‘surface’ layer.

Step 4

Press ‘Ctrl+T’ to resize and drag this textured layer to the top 

portion of your canvas as shown below.

After that, we’ll add some lighting to the ‘surface’ layer. For 

this, go to Filter> Render> Lighting effects and use ‘omni’ to 

get nice effect.

Step 5

In order to finish our surface portion, change the 

blending mode’ to ‘Luminosity’ and reduce the 

opacity of this layer to 80%. Select the soft round 

eraser tool to erase the lower edges, so it can 

blend with the background.

Step 6

Now select the duplicated surface layer and decrease its size a 

bit by pressing ‘Ctrl+T’. Drag it just below the original surface 

portion. Use ‘Overlay’ blending mode and 50% opacity and 

erase its edges to get the effect like this.

Step 7

Next, we’ll create some residue in water. Create a new layer 

just above the gradient layer. Fill it with # 000000 color. Go to 

Filter> Noise> Add noise and use the following values.

After that, change the blending mode of this noise layer to 

‘screen’ and opacity to 15%.

Step 8

Next, we’ll create the bottom of our image. Open the ‘stones’ 

image and select its bottom part using ‘pen tool’ and click 

‘Ctrl+U’ to open the ‘Hue and Saturation’ window and use the 

following values to extract colors.

Step 9

Open the ‘rocks’ image now and select some portion of rocks 

using ‘pen tool’ and desaturate the image exactly as done in 

step 8. After this, adjust the position of both stones and rocks 

images to give realistic look.

Step 10

Duplicate the blue gradient layer and place its copy just above 

‘rocks’ image layer. Change its blending mode to ‘Linear light’ 

and opacity to 80%.

Step 11

Now we’ll create sunrays penetrating through the surface. 

Create a new layer, select a square about 80% of your canvas 

size, using ‘rectangular marquee tool’ and go to Filter> 

Render> Clouds. Then click on Image> Adjustments>Threshold 

and use the following values.

After this, go to Filter> Blur> Radial blur and use the given 

settings.

Change the blending mode to ‘Linear dodge’ and opacity to 

50%.

Step 12

At the end, we’ll add some fishes using fish brushes. Select the 

‘brush tool’ and draw them of different sizes. I added color to 

few through ‘color overlay’ blending option. Collect all fishes in 

a new group and reduce its opacity to 75%.That’s it, we are all 

done.

The Final Picture Like That. :)

Hope you enjoyed learning this gorgeous 

underwater effect. Do share your thoughts