Building up from scratch a flat water texture in Photoshop or another similar program is one thing, but if you want to create something even more impressive, you have to try to add some depth to your virtual water, as you can see below. Don’t worry, this is not as hard as it may seem, and I’ll show you how to do it right away…

1. Create a new image, using any settings you want. This time I won’t use a square document, because this technique produces best results for wide images, and you can create excellent banners or forum signatures with it, for example.

2. Apply Filter>Render>Clouds to the background layer.

3. Next, use Filter>Distort>Glass, and the settings below…

4. We got a pretty good Black and White water, but now it’s time to make it look real. Use Image>Adjustments>Colour Balance to do that, and check my settings in the next screenshot.

5. If you want, you can use this image as a water texture already, but it doesn’t look as I want yet. Now, all we need to do is add some depth to the image. First of all, duplicate the background layer (you can remove the original, once you do this).

6. Simply go to Edit>Transform>Perspective and drag one of the lower corners of the image outside it, followed by the Enter key.

That’s all, folks! Adding some text to this image would make a really nice banner of forum signature, don’t you think?