How to Easily Create a Plastic Wrap Effect in Photoshop

Photoshop Photo Effects

The plastic wrap effect is an incredibly versatile and visually captivating technique that can add a distinctive edge to your design projects. Whether you want to create a sleek, glossy, and futuristic look for text, mimic the crinkled texture of cellophane for product mockups, or introduce a layer of tactile realism to your digital artwork, this effect offers endless creative possibilities. Today, I will show you how quick and simple is to create your own plastic wrap using only Photoshop's built-in filters and in less than five minutes.

Step 1

Open the image you want to apply the effect to in Photoshop.

Step 2

In the Layers Panel, click on the "Create a new layer" icon and rename this layer as "Base".

Step 3

Go to Edit > Fill. Apply the following settings and click OK.

Step 4

Go to Filter > Render > Difference Clouds.

Step 5

Go to Filter > Liquify. In the Liquify window, randomly deform the image as you wish and click OK.

Step 6

Go to Image > Adjustmennts > Levels. Adjust the levels in order to get a high contrast image by increasing the shadows and decreasing the highlights values.

Step 7

Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur. Set a Radius of 2 or 3 pixels and click OK.

Step 8

Go to Select > Color Range. Apply the following settings and click OK.

Step 9

With the selection active press Ctrl+J on your keyboard to duplicate the selection in a new layer and rename this layer to "Plastic".

Step 10

Hide the "Base" layer by clicking on the eye icon next to the layer's name.

Step 11

Lastly, set the Blending mode of the "Plastic" layer to Hard Light and adjust the layer Opacity if needed.

Some Final Notes:

If you wish to make the effect stand out even more, repeat the steps to create a new plastic layer and place it on top of the one you already made, then simply increase or decrease the plastic layer opacity to your liking as shown in the following example.