Photoshop

Apply the Displace filter

The Displace filter shifts a selection using a color value from the displacement map—0 is the maximum negative shift, 255 the maximum positive shift, and a gray value of 128 produces no displacement. If a map has one channel, the image shifts along a diagonal defined by the horizontal and vertical scale ratios. If the map has more than one channel, the first channel controls the horizontal displacement, and the second channel controls the vertical displacement.

The filter creates displacement maps using a flattened file saved in Adobe Photoshop format (except Bitmap mode images). You can also use the files in the Plug‑Ins/Displacement Maps folder in the Photoshop program folder.

  1. Choose Filter > Distort > Displace.
  2. Enter the scale for the magnitude of the displacement.

    When the horizontal and vertical scale are set to 100%, the greatest displacement is 128 pixels (because middle gray produces no displacement).

  3. If the displacement map is not the same size as the selection, specify how the map fits the image—select Stretch To Fit to resize the map or Tile to fill the selection by repeating the map in a pattern.
  4. Choose Wrap Around or Repeat Edge Pixels to determine how undistorted areas of the image are treated.
  5. Click OK.
  6. Select and open the displacement map. The distortion is applied to the image.