Liquid pixels - wrapping pixels over undulating silk
To carry out this activity you will need to make copies of the following two graphics.  Right click over them and save them to your network area

(they are much bigger than they appear here):



We will use the displace filter to merge the flag with the silk to get the following:



How it works (the technical explanation!): The brightness level of each pixel in the map directs the filter to shift the corresponding pixel of the selected layer in a horizontal or vertical plane. The principle on which this technique works is that of ‘mountains and valleys’. Dark pixels in the map shift the graphic pixels down into the shaded valleys of the 3-D form whilst the light pixels of the map raise the graphic pixels onto the illuminated peaks of the 3-D form.


A silk scarf was photographed and the colour removed using Photoshop.

Open both files that you have copied ie flag.jpg and silk.jpg

Select silk.jpg and save as a photoshop file:  





STEP 5
We now need to put both graphics together in one file.  Select the image of the flag.  Duplicate the layer.  Right click over the layer to get a menu > select Duplicate Layer (see below)

Use the drop down box to select the silk.psd  file:

When you select the silk.psd file you will notice that it has two layers, both the silk and union jack layers:

To join the images together select the flag layer and change the layer mode from Normal to Multiply:


However, the flag will not follow the contours as yet.  To do this go to ‘Filter > Distort > Displace’. Enter in the amount of displacement in the Horizontal and Vertical fields of the Displace dialog box. The size of the displacement is dependent on the resolution of the image you are working on.   For the resolution of the images that you are using use 10 instead of 50 shown below:

Choose the silk.psd file . 

As you have not saved this it will use the silk.psd file that only has the silk in it:

Your flag should now miraculously conform to the contours of the silk. If you are not entirely happy with the results undo using CTRL+Z. Repeat the process choosing smaller or greater amounts in the Displace dialog box.

This is the flag with a displacement of 50:

This is the flag with a displacement of 10: