The “Liquify” filter

With a very powerful tool “Liquify”, we can distort the pixels in an image.
The first thing we do is of course open our picture.

What I then do is to make a duplicate (1) of the background layer where I can go and apply the filter. This makes it easier later to tell the difference between the original and the updated version.
Then I make a selection from the part where I will perform my changes. This will zoom the picture to the selected part in the picture. Okay, okay, Of course, I can also zoom in the picture, but why the delay.

The part I want to edit are cheeks.

Now click “Filter” in the menu bar and choose “Liquify” in the drop-down menu.
This opens the “Liquify”.
On the left we find the various tools (1).
On the right side, at the top, we find the tool options (2), the reconstruction options (3), the mask options (4), and the view options (5).

Let us first consider the various tools. Let us see
On the top, we have the tool “Forward Warp” (1).
Among them we find the “Reconstruct” button (2).
The third button is the “Twirl Clockwise” (3).
Then we have the “Plucker” (4).
Then the “Bloat” (5).
Next the “Push Left” (6).
The “Mirror” (7).
The “Turbulence” (8).
And lastly the “Freeze Mask” (9) and “Thaw Mask ” (10) buttons.
Among them we find the “hand” and “Zoom” buttons, but you know what we can do with these by now.

Let me start by talking about the “Freeze Mask” (9) and “Thaw Mask” (10) and the corresponding options.
With the first button (9), we place a mask over the part of the photo that we do not want to edit. In other words, we freeze that part of the image.
With the second (10), we erase the frozen parts away.

Now, for the mask options and view options.
At the top we have five buttons.
With the first “Replace selection”, you give the selection, the mask or transparency in the original image.
With the second “Add to Selection”, you give the mask in the original image, so you can then expand the selection with the “Freeze Mask” tool. It adds selected pixels in the channel to the current frozen selection.
With the third “Subtract from Selection”, we remove pixels from the channel of the current frozen selection.
The fourth “Intersect with selection”, is used only with the selected pixels that are currently frozen.
And with the last “Invert Selection”, we use it to tranform the selected pixels in the current frozen selection.

I find them all as unnecessary buttons.
I personally would much rather work with the three buttons below.
“None”, Mask All ” and “Invert All “.

What the first two do seems obvious to me, what the third does is, change the masked as unmasked and unmasked as masked.

Among them we find the “Display Options”.
In the first box, we determine whether to show or hide the image.
You can change the “Opacity” only when the “Show Backdrop” option is checked. The “Show Backdrop” shows you the original version.
And it is only when the “Show image” option is selected, the “Show Mask” can be selected.
Below, we have the mask color. By default, this is red, but if you prefer another color, click the downward pointing arrow.

Many people do not use all these options, depending on how they prefer to work.
In the next lesson we will modify her hips slightly.

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