Animate a picture with liquify/smudge?

S
Posted By
sxcrachael
Dec 16, 2008
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641
Replies
5
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Closed
I asked in the after effects forum but they told me it was most likely done with photoshop, I want to make something like this:

<http://img265.imageshack.us/img265/7995/730030463lrq5.gif>

I know its done with smudge or liquefy but could anyone tell me how?

How did he edit frame by frame so the liquified part matches his fingers and looks like he grabbed it? how did he make it so that when he let go the liquified bit stretched backwards into place or how did he make the green matrix effect in the pic so the liquified looks black when stretched?

it must sound really stupid but I’m very noobie to photoshop, I use PS CS3 Extended and vista 64 bit.
Related Tags
liquify picture smudge

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JM
J_Maloney
Dec 16, 2008
How did he edit frame by frame so the liquified part matches his fingers and looks like he grabbed it?

By protecting the finger (not smudging them) and moving the smudge lines in the direction the fingers were "pulling".

how did he make it so that when he let go the liquified bit stretched backwards into place

The artist made two smudge animations, where the frame in which the hand moves offscreen is the "seam". First, forwards from the start; second, backwards from the last frame to the "seam". They don’t match up great, but that’s ok.

how did he make the green matrix effect in the pic so the liquified looks black when stretched?

That’s the hair and mouth being pulled smudged. I suppose he could have painted in a little black before a smudge move, but it seems to me that would just make things harder..
MS
Marta_Steward
Dec 17, 2008
awesom! thank you for being so helpful, I tried it a bit and kind of got the idea of what you explained, I was wondering if I could make something a bit different (since I dont like copying people),

would it be possible to have like a black and white animated picture that the hand instead of dragging your face away, reached towards the camera and dragged the black and white colors away (like if it was removing a liquified cloth from in front of the lens)…how would you go abouts doing the frame by frame and dividing the black and white liquified bit from the original color image animation? would it be harder than above? 🙂

thanks again for the kind help <3
JM
J_Maloney
Dec 17, 2008
It would harder, yes. You’d need to have two layers. One with the smudge effect (done on color photo) and another adjustment layer with a mask that you adjust for each frame (using the paint brush). Another way you might try it would be two layers, color under bw. You would smudge the black and white top layer and use a mask to reveal the color layer underneath. In the area of smudge, you might gray the layer mask a bit, as if the bw "film" is breaking down, getting partially transparent…
M
M4tth3w
Dec 18, 2008
I was browsing around these forums and saw this post, I personally dont know much about photoshop nor have it installed (more of a coding person) but I liked that black and white liquify animated idea for a school project I’m working on, do you do any freelance work Maloney? I’d be willing to pay, my email is or post yours if you’d like 🙂
JM
J_Maloney
Dec 18, 2008
Matthew, it’d be better for everyone if you got somebody with more video experience. Good luck with the project. And install PS if you can. It’s a life-changer!

J

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