Adding bubbles in Photoshop is a fun thing to do. It can give a cool effect to a water background. But how to make bubbles in Photoshop that are transparent and look realistic? This tutorial shows you step-by-step how to make water bubbles in Photoshop, using layer styles. It’s an easy to create water bubble effect that you can apply to all your images at the click of a mouse. Plus, there’s a FREE Bubble Effect Download waiting for you!
How do I make bubbles in Photoshop?
What do real bubbles actually look like? They’re not all perfectly round, right? They come in various oval and circular shapes and different sizes. And they don’t make their way up in straight lines. They rather fizz and dance around.
This is exactly how we want to make the water bubbles in Photoshop!
… and there’s a little goodie waiting for you at the end of this tutorial. If you don’t want to recreate the entire Water Bubble Effect yourself, you can download it for FREE from the Freebie Library!
If you want to find out how to make water bubbles in Photoshop, then just follow these 4 easy steps:
How to make water bubbles in Photoshop
STEP 1: Open the background layer to which you want to add bubbles in Photoshop
First of all, open your Photoshop app and the background you want to add the bubbles to.
The next step is very important because it’s the prerequisite for creating realistic water bubbles in Photoshop!
STEP 2: Configure Your Brush Settings To Create A Realistic Bubble Brush In Photoshop
To create the Photoshop bubble brush, we first need to bring up our Brush dialog box by going to Window > Brush in the top menu, or by making a click on the Brush icon in the Panels Bar.
Under Brush Tip Shape, we’re going to select a round brush and set it to 100% hardness. Next we activate spacing and set it to 54%.
Choose a brush size that fits your canvas size. I’m going for 48 px with a canvas size of 1000 x 800 pixels.
With that done, we’re going to move on to the next option in the Brush dialog window. Under Shape Dynamics, we’re going to tweak the settings as follows:
- Size Jitter: 100%
- Minimum Diameter: 0%
- Angle Jitter: 27%
- Roundness Jitter: 100%
- Minimum Roundness: 58%
Make sure to have both Flip X Jitter and Flip Y Jitter checked. I’ve switched all Controls Off.
In the next step, we’re going to adjust Scattering.
Scatter needs to be at 1000%, Count at 1, and Count Jitter at 98%.
Again, I’ve set the Controls to Off.
The last thing we’re going to modify is Transfer.
Set both Opacity Jitter and Flow Jitter to 0%, and switch the Controls Off.
And that was it. You’ve just configured your Photoshop bubble brush!
Let’s move on to the next step.
STEP 3: Add A New Layer And Paint The Water Bubbles Onto It
Now, how to add the bubbles in Photoshop?
Adding the bubbles in Photoshop is very easy now.
On top of your background layer, create a new layer, either by clicking on the ‘Create new layer’ icon at the bottom of your Layers Panel or by going to Layer > New > Layer… in Photoshop’s top menu bar.
Now grab your Photoshop bubble brush (brush color doesn’t matter) and simply move the brush over the new layer where you want to add the bubbles.
STEP 4: Add Layer Styles To Achieve The Water Bubble Effect In Photoshop
How do you make a transparent bubble in Photoshop?
Well, the colored spots on our canvas don’t show any similarities with water bubbles yet. But don’t worry. I’m now going to show you how to make transparent bubbles in Photoshop by adding blending options and adding layer styles.
For the matter, we’ll first need to bring up our Layer Style dialog box. There are three ways to do that:
- Click on the Layer Styles fx icon at the bottom of your layers panel.
- Make a right click in the blank area of the layer and select Blending Options from the popup menu.
- Go to Layer > Layer Style > Blending Options in the top menu.
1. Blending Options
Under the ‘Blending Options: Custom’ tab at the very top in the Layer Style dialog box, move the Fill Opacity slider down to 0% (Advanced Blending section in the center).
2. Drop Shadow
Next, we’re going to move down to the Drop Shadow effect at the very bottom.
Keep the Blend Mode at Multiply, and the color at black (#000000). Reduce the Opacity to 11%, set the Angle to 120 degrees, and enable Use Global Light.
Set Distance, Spread and Size to 4 px each.
Down below in the Quality section, make sure to set the Contour to Cone (the little single ‘hill’).
That was it for Drop Shadow. Let’s jump over to Inner Shadow!
3. Inner Shadow
For the Inner Shadow effect, keep the Blend Mode at Multiply and the color at black. Decrease the Opacity to 20%.
Make sure to have the Angle set to 120 degrees and Use Global Light activated.
Distance and Choke are both at 5 px; Size is set to 10 px.
You don’t need to change anything in the Quality section.
4. Inner Glow
Moving on to Inner Glow, we’re going to set the Blend Mode to Screen, and reduce the Opacity to 5%. Select a white color (#FFFFFF) by clicking on the color square.
Under Elements, we’re going to set Choke to 5% and Size to 30 px.
In the Quality section, select Gaussian for Contour, enable Anti-aliased, and set the Range to 50 %.
If you take a peak over to your picture, you’ll see that the initial colored spots have changed quite a bit in the meantime, but they still don’t look anything like water bubbles.
We still need to make them look ‘wet’ to achieve a realistic water bubble effect in Photoshop.
How do you make something look wet in Photoshop?
5. Bevel & Emboss
Bevel & Emboss is what eventually will allow us to make water bubbles in Photoshop – which really look like ‘wet’ bubbles!
So let’s enable the Bevel & Emboss effect and tweak it correctly. We’ll keep Style at Inner Bevel, and Technique at Smooth. We’re going to set Depth to 80%, Size to 9 px, and Soften to 3 px.
In the Shading section, set the Angle to 120 degrees, the Altitude to 30 degrees, and enable Use Global Light and Anti-aliased. The Gloss Contour can remain at Linear.
For Highlight Mode, it’s important that you select Normal and set the color to white (#FFFFFF). Opacity is 100%.
Switch Shadow Mode to Lighten and also select a white color (#FFFFFF). Opacity is 5%.
And that was it! This is how easy it is to make water bubbles in Photoshop!
Take a look at your picture and see how the bubbles came out. You can still tweak the Opacity to what looks best for your image.
To make the water bubbles appear less intense in certain areas or to remove some of them completely, you can add a layer mask and paint over those areas with a black brush.
→ How To Change The Opacity Of Part Of An Image In Photoshop
Grab your free Photoshop Water Bubble Effect
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I hope that this tutorial on how to make water bubbles in Photoshop was helpful. If you found any value in it, please feel free to share it with other artists so they can also learn from it!
If you are using anything of what I’ve showed you in this post, don’t forget to tag me on Instagram @ginangiela, or post a link here in the comments. I’d love to see your creations! Make sure to sign up for my email list below so you don’t miss out on new Photoshop tutorials, perks for subscribers and other cool stuff. ♥
