In this tutorial we’re going to learn about the liquify filter.

We can apply the liquify filter to correct some facial features and augment a photo for example and is particularly handy if you make a lot of digital photo processing and this is how we do it. After we have our photo ready, we choose Filter -> Liquify and this will bring forward a separate panel with our picture.

On this panel if you zoom in you will notice that photoshop has applied a Mesh on top of your picture.

On this view we are able to bend and shape the edges of our pictures. This is handy for a variety of reasons examples are the bend of the nose, the openness of the eyes etc. It is very important not to overdo it with this feature because in the end it can be quite obvious that we used a filter.

Tip! If you don’t see the Mesh, click on the bottom your right hand side bar View Options-> Show Mesh. For more details choose Mesh Size -> Small.

By clicking and dragging on the facial characteristics we can affect the way a face looks. For instance try to spot the differences on the following two pictures. Can you spot the enhanced areas?

It’s a good idea once you get the liquify filter done to go to Fiter -> Blur -> Surface Blur and it only affects the surface of your image and it’s a good way to smooth out the skin look on your portraits.

Hope you have fun trying out this feature!

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