Tutorial: Realistic Water Drops in Photoshop

In this Photoshop tutorial, I will show you how to create realistic water drops. You can use this method to create water drops for leaves, metals, glass and other surfaces. The technique is simple and easy, all you have to do is to create a shape and change the blending options. I will show you step by step how to achieve a similar result.

Learn how to create realistic water drops in Photoshop

Tutorial Details and Resources

Difficulty: Beginner
Apps Used: Adobe Photoshop
Estimated Completion Time: 5-20′ Minutes
Resources: Green Leaf Image from whologwhy

Step 1 > Open the Image

Open the image you want to add water drops. For this tutorial, i used a green leaf but you can use metals, glass, and other similar surfaces.

Step 2 > Create the Shape

First, create a new layer by going to Layer > New > Layer (Shift Ctrl + N) and name it “Water Drops”. Pick the Ellipse Tool (U) and fill it with black to white gradient and -70 Angle. Finally, change the blending mode to Overlay.

Step 2 > Blending Options

Right click on the water drops layer and press “Blending Options” in the new tab add the following values:

Drop Shadow: blending mode = linear burn, opacity = 32, angle = 90, distance = 8, spread = 0, size = 6.

Inner Glow: blending mode = linear burn, opacity = 33, noise = 0, choke = 0, size = 2.

Inner Shadow: blending mode = linear burn, opacity = 16, angle = -53, distance = 3, size = 3 and press OK.

Step 3 > Add Highlight

Ctrl + click on Water Drop layer to select it and create a new layer with the name “Highlight 1”. Pick a small soft white brush with size 33px and draw on top of selection. Change the blending mode to Overlay.

Step 4 > Add Another Highlight

With the water drop selection still active create another layer and name it “Highlight 2” With smaller brush add another white dot with size 22px and 0 hardness. Press (Ctrl + D) to deselect. Your water drop is almost ready.

Step 5 > Group Layers

Press (Shift) and select Water Drop, Highlight 1 and Highlight 2 layers. Press (Ctrl + G) to group them. Rename the Group 1 to Water Drop 1.

Step 6 > Add More Drops

Duplicate the “Water Drop 1” group and transform it by pressing (Ctrl + T). Move the new group and repeat the same process to create the water drops.

Conclusion

Create more water drops in different shapes and sizes to make the image more realistic. Add more highlights and follow the direction of light in your image. When you zoom out them image will look even better.