Written By Steve Patterson

In this Photoshop tutorial, we'll learn how to add bubbles to a photo by creating our very own bubble brush! We'll draw a simple bubble, save it as a Photoshop brush, customize its behavior using the Brush Dynamics options in the Brushes panel, then use the brush to paint bubbles into a photo! I'll be using Photoshop CS5 throughout this tutorial, but any recent version of Photoshop will do. Here's an example of the effect we'll be creating:

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Let's get started!

Step 1: Create A New Document

Let's start by creating a new Photoshop document which we'll use to draw our bubble. Go up to the File menu in the Menu Bar at the top of the screen and choose New:

This opens Photoshop's New Document dialog box. Enter 600 pixels for both the Width and Height of the new document and 72 pixels/inch for the Resolution. There's no particular reason why we're using these specific settings other than it keeps us both on the same page. Finally, make sure the Background Contents option is set to White. Click OK when you're done to close out of the dialog box. The new document, with white as its background color, will appear on your screen:

Step 2: Select The Elliptical Marquee Tool

Select the Elliptical Marquee Tool from the Tools panel. By default, it's hiding behind the Rectangular Marquee Tool, so click on the Rectangular Marquee Tool and hold your mouse button down until a fly-out menu appears showing you the other tools available in that slot, then click on the Elliptical Marquee Tool to select it:

Step 3: Draw An Elliptical Selection

With the Elliptical Marquee Tool selected, hold down Shift+Alt (Win) / Shift+Option (Mac), click in the center of the document, then drag out an elliptical selection outline which will become the basic shape of our bubble. Holding the Shift key down as you drag is what forces the selection outline into a perfect circle, while holding the Alt (Win) / Option (Mac) key tells Photoshop to use the spot you clicked on as the center of the selection, extending it out in all directions from that spot. When you're done, you should have a selection outline in the shape of a circle:

Step 4: Copy The Selection To A New Layer

Go up to the Layer menu at the top of the screen, choose New, then choose Layer via Copy, or press Ctrl+J (Win) / Command+J (Mac) on your keyboard to quickly access the same command:

Photoshop copies the circular area inside the selection onto a new layer named Layer 1 above the Background layer in the Layers panel:

Step 5: Add An Inner Glow Layer Style

Click on the Layer Styles icon at the bottom of the Layers panel:

Select Inner Glow from the list of layer styles that appears:

This opens Photoshop's Layer Style dialog box set to the Inner Glow options in the middle column. First, change the Blend Mode from Screen to Multiply, which will turn our inner glow into an inner shadow. Click on the color swatch below the word "Noise" and choose black from the Color Picker. Click OK to close out of the Color Picker when you're done. Finally, increase the Size of the inner glow (shadow) to around 40 px:

Don't click OK yet to exit out of the Layer Style dialog box because we still have one more to add, but you should now see the outer edges of the bubble:

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