Photoshop: How to Use the Liquify Tool
Looking to use Photoshop’s Liquify filter without making your images look fake? Check out this tutorial for some tips on how to get the most realistic results.
When it comes to giving your photos a little bit of extra oomph, there’s no tool quite as versatile as Liquify in Photoshop. But as with any tool, it’s important to use it sparingly, and with a light touch, otherwise, you risk making your photos look fake. In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to use Liquify in Photoshop in a way that looks natural and believable.
How to Liquify in Photoshop
To use the Photoshop Liquify tool:
- Open the image that you want to edit.
- Right-click on the image layer and click Duplicate Layer.
- Hit OK and right-click on your new layer.
- Click Filter>Liquify or hit Shift+Ctrl+X (Windows) or Shift+Cmd+X (Mac).
- Use the pre-defined face-tuning tools on the right side of the screen.
- Click the Forward Warp Tool at the top of the toolbar to the left.
- Select your brush size options on the right.
- Left-click and drag around the edges of your image to liquify them.
- When you are done, hit Ok.
The Liquify tool is best used sparingly. Luckily, a lot of the pre-set face tuning options in Photoshop make it very easy to resize aspects of the face. Use the sliders on the right of the Liquify Screen to adjust the size of the eyes, head, and lips.
When using the Forward Warp Tool, make sure that you are using a brush size similar to the size of the area you want to manipulate, and put the center of your brush over the edges you want to modify. Otherwise, you’ll get a strange warped effect.
Another tip is that you should use short strokes. The longer that you click and hold the Forward Warp Tool, the more distorted your image becomes.
