Concentric ring ripple on image comp

Question

Need to put together a comp for a client that includes a concentric ring ripple effect. I cannot look amateurish. Can anybody guide me to a tutorial on how to add this effect? I not only need to create the distortion pattern but need to include some reflectivity AND control for both 2D distortion and reflectivity. Once I get this down then I will mask accordingly.

The image below is a rough cut of the image I am working on for this client. Most of the tutorials I have reviewed seem to be incomplete or amateurish. Any help would be deeply appreciated!

sharp_hands16B8 · Accepted Answer

If I wasn't using a photo to composite for this effect, I would build it with alpha channels, etc. See descriptions below.

Create an alpha channel with concentric circles that are white on a black background
Blue that alpha channel so that the white to black blends making a more "rounded" surface.

Create a new layer, fill it with 50% gray.

Now use Render > LIghting Effects and under Texture choose the alpha channel you've made earlier. Adjust settings for height and other properties. It will look a little gritty, you can smooth that later.
This will give you some ripples against the surface.
Now, use Plastic Wrap from the Filter Gallery and this will add smoothing and "wet" looking highlights to your ripples..

Now that you have this on a gray layer with ripple shadows and highlights being moved above and below middle gray, your blend modes will give you more flexibility for compositing. Use the middle grays as an option for blending in reflections from your composite image.

Continue layering in additional plastic wrap filters, throw some diffusion in for texture under Stylize > Diffuse and experiment from there for the layering of ripples/highlights that you want.

Blurring really helps when smoothing how the lighting renders some of these effects.

Alpha channel with concentric white circles, increasing in size

Blurred so that Render LIghting Effects will round out the form

New Gray Layer we will build the ripple into

Using Render LIghting Effects on the Gray Layer, choose your Alpha Channel from the Texture Pull down menu option in the filter

Under Filter Gallery, choose Plastic Wrap. Use lots of smoothing and play with highlights for volume

Now under Filter Distort, use Twirl to spin it in a way that details blend together. This only works if you have your circles dead center at the start.

I added a little oil paint texture for some natural looking surface distortion and then added a small amount of plastic wrap highlights again to finish it out.

Being solid gray, this could now be easily blended into other images using various blend modes like overlay, screen, etc...

Martin_Bns · Answer

Hi Sanpanza,I work with creative compositings producing compositings and creative images all the time.The most important part in this project is to understand that there is no tutorial to do this. What is important is to cheat the eye of the viewer and create a nice composition.In this kind of projects is a great idea to start using some images of what you need. Look for images with the ripple effect and use them in order to create your composition. There is no reason to do the ripple effect by hand because the time and the effort you put in is not better than using a photo.The reflectivity is often achieved by duplicating the layer of the subject you want to reflect and move it around and play with the opacity until you like the result.The depth of field, the use of different tones of colors in order to control the sense of depth in the image is far more important than a perfect mathematic ripple effect in order to convince the eye that what it sees is real.I hope that this can help in order to set the right mindset for this image.All my best,Martin

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