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Post & Photo by Joe Farace – Follow Joe on Twitter

One way to increase an image’s drama is to add environmental elements such as water. The best way to add digital water to a digital photograph is by using Flaming Pear Software’s Flood Photoshop-compatible plug-in. Although in this example I use the plug-in with Adobe Photoshop, many inexpensive image editing programs support Photoshop compatible plug-ins. That means you may be able to apply this same technique using less expensive programs. As painful as this may be to some, check the user’s guide for details.

For this example I chose my photograph of the Eiffel Tower in Paris (not the one in Las Vegas.) Why? Because everybody knows that there is no lake in front of it. Flaming Pear Software’s Flood plug-in has lots of controls, but before you play in the digital water, it’s important to set the level using the plug-in’s Horizon setting. A preview window shows exactly where the water level will be. The final look of Lake Eiffel creates the effect that matches my concept of a peaceful lake with a light breeze

The simplest approach to creating water effects using Flood is to click on the “dice” icon in the interface. That throws random combinations at you as fast as you can slick. You can hen refine any of these combinations that you like by using the many sliders included. Just keep clicking until you find one that you like and then use the sliders to tweak it to produce the look that you want. Most people will find it works faster that way than using the sliders first, but you may not so try it both ways. The main thing is to have fun with your photography and Flood is one of the ways that I use to “play” with my photographs.

Tip: Sometimes you want to add a lake or body of water to an image and there’s no room at the bottom of the photograph. In that case, you can add more picture area to the image by using Photoshop’s Canvas Size (Image > Canvas Size) to enlarge the bottom of the photograph. The extra space will be blank, but since you’re going to be adding digital water in that space using the Flood plug-in it doesn’t matter anyway!

Joe Farace is the author of “Studio Lighting Anywhere” the second book in a trilogy or glamour and portrait photography from Amherst Media. It’s available on Amazon.com.

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