Jeff Wignall's "The Joy of Digital Photography"

Flaming Pear's "Flood" filter: Add a watery reflection to any scene

I don't spend a lot of time playing with creative Photoshop plug-in filters, but I have to admit they are a lot of fun. (In fact, if I had more time, I'd probably spend my life doing nothing else.) One of my favorites is Flaming Pear's "Flood" filter that lets you add a watery foreground reflection to virtually any scene. It's a lot of fun to add reflections to subjects like desert landscapes or city streets where they just don't belong.

The filter is super easy to use and so far I haven't come across (or gone looking for) much in the way of documentation, so most of what I do is just click on various tool icons to see what happens--a great way to learn what a filter can do, by the way. You can alter the appearance of the reflection by adding things like waves and ripples and you can also control the perspective of the reflection and where exactly in intersects you subject. I created the shot of the reflection of the Eiffel Tower in just a few minutes of playing and experimenting. For $29 it's a filter that's well worth owning and you can download it immediately from the Flaming Pear site. The company offers several other interesting filters, too.

After the Flood

There are a lot of fun Photoshop plug-in filters out there that will let you add almost any kind of special effect to your images and while I haven't experimented with all that many of them, I still enjoy discovering new creative toys. My most recent experiments have been with a plug-in from Flaming Pear Software called the "Flood" filter. And the filter does just what its name implies: it floods your images with water creating all sorts of interesting reflections, forming unexpected lakes (putting a lake in the middle of Utah's Monument Valley was a lot of fun--see the continuation page) or just generally submerging any subject you like.

Using the filter is easy and although I've only been playing with it for a few days, I've created several images I like. Basically all that you do is open an image that you think will work well with a reflection (landscapes work particularly well) and then tell Flood where you want the horizon line. Then you simply adjust the pattern, size and frequency of the ripples in the water. You can even adjust the "perspective" of the reflection so that you can make the scene look quite realistic. (more...)