Photoshop

Distortion tools

Several tools in the Liquify dialog box distort the brush area when you hold down the mouse button or drag. The distortion is concentrated at the center of the brush area, and the effect intensifies as you hold down the mouse button or repeatedly drag over an area.

Forward Warp tool 
Pushes pixels forward as you drag.
Shift-click with the Warp tool, the Push Left tool, or the Mirror tool to create the effect of dragging in a straight line from the previous point you clicked.

Twirl Clockwise tool 
Rotates pixels clockwise as you hold down the mouse button or drag. To twirl pixels counterclockwise, hold down Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac OS) as you hold down the mouse button or drag.

Pucker tool 
Moves pixels toward the center of the brush area as you hold down the mouse button or drag.

Bloat tool 
Moves pixels away from the center of the brush area as you hold down the mouse button or drag.

Push Left tool 
Moves pixels to the left when you drag the tool straight up (pixels move to the right if you drag down). You can also drag clockwise around an object to increase its size, or drag counterclockwise to decrease its size. To push pixels right when you drag straight up (or to move pixels left when you drag down), hold down Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac OS) as you drag.

Mirror tool 
Copies pixels to the brush area. Drag to mirror the area perpendicular to the direction of the stroke (to the left of the stroke). Alt-drag (Windows) or Option-drag (Mac OS) to mirror the area in the direction opposite to that of the stroke (for example, the area above a downward stroke). Usually, Alt‑dragging or Option-dragging gives better results when you have frozen the area you want to reflect. Use overlapping strokes to create an effect similar to a reflection in water.

Turbulence tool 
Smoothly scrambles pixels. It is useful for creating fire, clouds, waves, and similar effects.

Liquify tool options

In the tool options area of the dialog box, set the following options:

Brush Size
Sets the width of the brush you’ll use to distort the image.

Brush Pressure
Sets the speed at which distortions are made when you drag a tool in the preview image. Using a low brush pressure makes changes occur more slowly, so it’s easier to stop them at exactly the right moment.

Brush Rate
Sets the speed at which distortions are applied when you keep a tool (such as the Twirl tool) stationary in the preview image. The higher the setting, the greater the speed at which distortions are applied.

Brush Density
Controls how a brush feathers at the edge. An effect is strongest in the center of the brush and lighter at the edge.

Turbulent Jitter
Control how tightly the Turbulence tool scrambles pixels.

Reconstruct Mode
Used for the Reconstruct tool, the mode you choose determines how the tool reconstructs an area of the preview image.

Select Stylus Pressure
Uses pressure readings from a stylus tablet. (This option is available only when you are working with a stylus tablet.) When selected, the brush pressure for the tools is the stylus pressure multiplied by the Brush Pressure value.