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I was speculating on how Equations could be used to create a ripple-like effect in a reflection. I used an image of a Mill on the River Avon at Tewkesbury. I flipped the image vertically and then applied Filter > Distort > Equations as follows. The main effect is to vary the position of each pixel on the y-axis in a sinusoidal fashion, so I began with: y=y+100*sin(2*360*y/h) The 100 is just a scaling factor for now. This had the right effect but was the same right across the image, so I added a cosine function which would vary the magnitude across the x-axis: y=y+100*cos(10*x/w)*sin(2*360*y/h) Again the 10 here is a scaling factor. The result was: I should be able to tweak this into a macro where the user could vary the amplitude of the ripple, and the amplitude of the horizontal variation. A further tweak could be to add a perspective effect so that the ripples nearer the observer look larger than those further away. What do possible users think. Would this be a useful macro or are there easier ways to get the same effect? John

I have updated my Ripples macro originally posted under Tutorials. I am now posting under Resources, since it is really delivering a sort-of-finished product rather than a 'How to'. The new version has three parameters: a controls vertical spacing of the ripples. Reducing the a parameter increases the ripple frequency (reduces the wavelength). b controls the horizontal variation of ripple amplitude across the width of the image. Small values of b make the ripples change a lot across the image. For large values (~=1) the changes cycle two or three times across the image. c affects ripple complexity. This is very much a suck-it-and-see parameter. A value of one adds no complexity, a vale of 1 does. Here is an original image (Tewkesbury Mill inverted): And with the macro applid with a-1, b=0.5 and c-0.5: I have to admit that the results I have had with this macro are varied. Sometimes it is very impressive, but for other images it is definitely not! Here is the macro as a single file and as a library: Ripples.afmacro Ripples.afmacros I have been looking at the Distortions macro in the Macro Pack with mixed results. I have got it to perform, but not consistently. It appears to have no visible effect on the Tewkesbury Mill image. John

I have been trying to create some realistic water ripples in AP. I am after a general randomised overall ripple, not the radiating circle type. This is not an urgent need, it is simply an exercise I set myself as part of really learning AP in depth after years of doing things its competitor’s way. AP has a ripple filter but it has no independent control over amplitude and wavelength and no means of randomisation. It really isn’t suitable for this particular task. PS has an excellent wave filter but the whole point was not to use it!! I found two plugins for this: Redfield Water Ripples and Flaming Pear Flood. The former is Windows only and the latter doesn’t seem to work in the AP plug in environment. I tried using a high contrast black and white image of rippling water as the basis for the Displace filter but the results were less than satisfactory. So does anyone have any suggestions for doing this in AP? :wacko: