How to create an underwater text effect in Adobe Photoshop

Lidia Lukianova is an artist and designer who likes traveling, playing guitar, and writing songs. iPad illustration is her passion. Learning how to use this tool for working on all kinds or projects, from identity to illustration, lettering, and animation, has been her primary creative focus. 

Start by creating a displacement map of the bubbles by applying a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer. Lukianova desaturated her image and applied a Gaussian Blur before saving the file as a new Photoshop document.

Back in the original water image, Lukianova typed the word DREAM and converted the text layer to a Smart Object.

To form the text around the bubbles, apply the Displace filter (Filter > Distort > Displace) and adjust the settings for your desired effect. Next, when prompted, select the Photoshop document you saved earlier to use as the displacement map.

Lukianova duplicated the water layer and moved it to the top layer to distort the bubbles around the letters. She then created a clipping mask (Layers > Make A Clipping Mask) so the water would fit around the shape of the letters. After you’ve done that, set the Blend Mode to Exclusion and reduce the Fill percentage. Finish the look by changing the Blend Mode of the type layer to Luminosity.

Use this technique to apply texture to flat images and add depth to your compositions.

Note: Project files included with this tutorial are for practice purposes only.

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