How to use Liquify to tidy hair and reshape small details

Reshape with Liquify in six steps

1. 1

   Open the photo and duplicate the layer

   Open the photo with File› then Open… (Ctrl+O or ⌘O); to follow along, open the sample from this page. Choose Layer› then Duplicate Layer. Liquify changes the pixels of the layer it works on, so working on a copy keeps the original underneath: hide or delete the copy to go back, or lower its opacity to soften the change.

   Liquify needs one unlocked pixel layer and no active selection. A Smart Object has to be rasterized first, which is another reason to work on a copy.

2. 2

   Choose Filter › Liquify…

   Liquify opens in its own workspace: the photo on the left, the brushes and their settings on the right. Above the photo, Before shows the original, and the Fit menu switches to 100% detail, which shows an 800 × 600 px area at full size; the Detail center X and Detail center Y sliders move it around the photo.

   Work at 100% detail. At Fit a whole portrait is shrunk to the preview, so a 160 px brush is only about 50 px on screen and a 30 px push is about 10 px of mouse movement. Set Detail center X to 0 for the left side of the photo or 1 for the right, and move Detail center Y down as you work.

   

   

3. 3

   Freeze what must not move

   Click Freeze, set Size to 90, and paint over the areas next to your edit that must keep their shape. Frozen areas are shown in red while Show freeze mask is ticked, and no brush moves them. On the sample, one stroke runs down the left edge of the face from the forehead to the jaw, with the circle’s center about 20 px inside the skin, so the red band covers the skin edge and the strands lying against it. The pushes in the next step stop short of the face, so Freeze is a safeguard: it keeps the jaw line still where the lower circles touch it near the chin.

   Thaw removes freeze where you brush; Clear freeze mask removes it all.

   

4. 4

   Push the detail into place

   Click Push. Set Size larger than the detail you are moving, so the brush moves it and its surroundings together: 160 px beside the forehead and temple on the sample, 120 px lower down, where the strands hang close to the cheek and jaw. Leave Density (how fast the effect fades toward the brush edge) and Rate (how strongly it pushes) at 50.

   Place the circle over the loose strands, with its outer edge just inside the photo, and drag toward the head by about a fifth of the circle’s width. Lift, move down by about a sixth of the circle’s width, and push again, so each push overlaps the last. Work down the left side from level with the top of the forehead to the cheekbone. Then switch to 120 px and carry on down beside the cheek and jaw with shorter drags, about a tenth of the circle’s width, starting each push with the circle about 15 px short of the skin. When you’re done, the outline of the hair is 30–50 px narrower beside the forehead, and the strands beside the cheek and jaw lie 10–25 px closer, while the jaw line stays exactly where it was.

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5. 5

   Check, repair and compare

   Tick Before to see the original, and untick it to carry on. If one area went too far, brush over it with Reconstruct: each stroke moves it back toward its original shape. Undo stroke takes back the last stroke; Reset all starts over.

   

   

6. 6

   Apply and save

   Click Apply Liquify. The whole session becomes one step that Edit› then Undo can take back. Turn the copy layer’s eye off and on in the Layers panel to compare with the original underneath.

   To keep both layers, save with File› then Save As› then Lil Cactus Project… (Ctrl+Shift+S or ⇧⌘S); after that, File› then Save saves the project. File› then Save on the JPEG you opened writes the result back into it, flattened; the first time, the Save Image dialog asks for its quality. File› then Export› then JPEG… writes a separate copy.

   

The other Liquify brushes

• Expand and Contract: hold the mouse down, or brush, to make an area grow or shrink from the brush center. Use them in small doses, for example on a logo or a product shape.
• Twirl: rotates an area clockwise while you hold or brush.

A bigger Size with a lower Rate gives smoother, more natural changes than a small brush at full strength.

Fix common problems

Liquify is grayed out

Select a single unlocked pixel layer and remove any selection with Select› then Deselect (Ctrl+D or ⌘D; some browsers take that shortcut for bookmarks). Rasterize a Smart Object first, or work on a duplicate.

The background next to the edit bends

Straight lines and textures near the brush move with it. Freeze them first, or brush the bent area with Reconstruct.

A dent or bulge in the outline

One push went too far. Undo it with Undo stroke and push again in shorter drags, about a fifth of the circle’s width each.

Strands bunch up or smear against the face

They were pushed into a frozen edge and piled up along it. Undo those pushes, use shorter drags, and stop the circle short of the frozen area.

The face or jaw line moved

The push circle reached the skin past the frozen strip. Undo, freeze a little further out, or keep the circle further from the skin.

Streaks along the edge of the photo

A brush circle that hangs over the edge of the photo pulls in copies of the edge pixels, which show as straight streaks. Use a smaller Size near the edge, or freeze a strip along it first.

What to do next

• Retouch skin without losing texture: frequency separation.
• Shape the light instead of the outline: dodge and burn.
• Limit the change to part of the copy: layer masks.

Coming from another editor

Photoshop

Filter › Liquify…, with Forward Warp, Reconstruct, Freeze Mask and Thaw Mask tools. In Lil Cactus the push brush is called Push.

GIMP

The Warp Transform tool (Tools › Transform Tools › Warp Transform). In Lil Cactus the equivalent is Filter › Liquify…

Liquify: questions and answers