Help, pretty please

[InkL0sed]

So, I'm working an a draft for Pirates v. Ninjas...

I'm trying to create a shallow-water effect between a little "island" and the land, as you can see. How would I smooth the transition between the two?

Whatever I do, I'll need to do it for the actual land as well, since it'll essentially be the same thing - a transition, though this time between grass and sand, not sand and shallow water...

Click image to enlarge.

[RjBeals]

I would say reduce the opacity of that land area between the 2 islands. Just image in your in a plane looking down - if that was shallow water, you would still see the water, but the shallow land area would be barely visible. So reduce the opacity to like 5-10%. Then feather the edges so they are not so hard.

[ZeakCytho]

You could make a separate layer and take a lighter color with a less opaque brush and draw around the outline of the coast; then take a more medium color at a much lower opacity and color between the transition between the two. But that might not work for whatever style you're going for. You could also try the dodge tool, but I'm not sure how great that would really look.

I'm not sure this is the most efficient way, though, so wait for someone more experienced to answer you

[RjBeals]

Not great - I would add some white surf and ripples. But I did this by adding some blue water layers, then changing the opacity.

[InkL0sed]

Hot damn.

I think I see what you did though, amazingly enough...

[bryguy]

i like whatever rj did to the sand in his version, it looks really cool!