How do I make wood look wet.

[excell]

I want to achieve the effect where the chopping board looks like it has been splashed with water (kind of like in the photo of the drawer). How would I go about achieving this.

 

[IamSam]

Wet, at it's base, is only a color variation..........usually darker. This is easily done using a "wet Layer" which is a darker color layer with a new blending mode option.

Color/wet layer. Color was sampled from the board itself.


Set to Soft Light blend mode.


The color, it's blending option, and it's opacity can be changed to meet your needs.
This is a good starting point.

 

[Rich54]

I just finished mine. Very similar idea as @IamSam.

• Duplicate your image to a new layer. Change the new layer blend mode to Multiply.
• Apply a layer mask and fill mask entirely with black.
• Then paint with white in the mask to reveal darker (wet) areas.
• You can even have the wetness spill over onto the gray background (which I did accidentally in the upper-left).
• Optionally, add a Vibrance adjustment layer, clipped to your wet layer, and crank-up the saturation.

Something like this:

 

[JeffK]

I went a different route -

First separate your cutting board from the background and place on a separate layer



Now using a clipping mask, apply a hue and saturation layer...increase the red saturation, decrease the lightness, and increase blue saturation:





You'll get a slight staining effect: Mask out the parts you don't want/need :


Now create a curves layer, apply a clipping mask, and drag the left slider to the right to deepen the "stain".. Apply the same mask as you had on the hue/saturation layer
by holding down the alt key (option on mac) ad dragging it up to the curves layer.



Here;s where I ended up:



You can play with the settings to change the effect. Bit more complicated than @IamSam and @Rich54 but just another option....

 

[Peano]

Countless ways to do this in Photoshop. I made a ragged selection and lightened the dry part of the board (curves adj layer), so the original darker hue is the wet part.

 

[Peano]

Countless ways to do this in Photoshop. I made a ragged selection and lightened the dry part of the board (curves adj layer), so the original darker hue is the wet part.

View attachment 141321

You could also use png spill shapes for the layer mask. It depends on your purpose for this wet-wood effect.

 

[excell]

Countless ways to do this in Photoshop. I made a ragged selection and lightened the dry part of the board (curves adj layer), so the original darker hue is the wet part.

View attachment 141321

how did you make that ragged selection?

 

[Peano]

how did you make that ragged selection?

I used a small, rough brush. I forget which one, but it was something like rough charcoal. Set brush opacity to 50% or so and just scratch along the edge. I use a pen and tablet, so it's a lot easier than using a mouse.