Digital Toolbox Special: Photoshop at the Pro Level

3. FOAM DESIGN

The final masks needed to be just right—they had to look natural in terms of what foam and bubbles are actually capable of doing, while at the same time look as much like idealized comedy/tragedy masks as possible. They also had to be a quick read. People don’t look at ads for very long, so they have to say what they need to say in a very quickly. To make it happen, I used Layer Masks to play with the bubbles until they were just right.

4. 3D BUBBLES (not shown)

The bubbles in the full glass aren’t just suspended, they’re integrated with the rest of the bubble events going on in the glass, particularly those interesting lines of bubbles between the mask and the bottom. I achieved dimensionality by building up various layers of screened bubble images, and then, to further emphasize depth, I added a few Levels and Curves adjustment layers to darken the left side and brighten the right.