Filters

1 In the earlier editions of this book, I used to feature a technique showing how to imitate a Polaroid film emulsion transfer. It is now easier to accomplish with the Liquify filter. The image shown here has a background layer, a tree stump image layer (with an associated adjustment layer), and above this, an independent Polaroid emulsion border layer set to Multiply blend mode.

2 I activated the tree stump image layer and chose Liquify from the Filter menu. I mainly used the Turbulence tool plus the clockwise and counterclockwise twirl tools to create the distortions that you see here. I then clicked on the Save Mesh button to save this distortion so that it could be reused.

Adobe Photoshop 7.0 for Photographers

3 I then selected Layer 2 (which was the border image in Multiply mode) and opened Liquify again. This time I clicked on the Load Mesh button and loaded the recently saved mesh, applying an identical distortion, to produce the result shown here.