How To Plastic Wrap Your Candy With Photoshop And Illustrator

In this tutorial, I will touch on the Photoshop filter - Plastic Wrap. The Plastic Wrap filter is one of the most useful special effects tool Photoshop has to offer. Use it to make create beads of sweat on an athlete, to just about anything that dribbles.  Oh, and if you really want to, you can use it to draw shiny dripping paint on the can. In this work through, we're going to use this technique to create a plastic wrap on a candy.

Final Plastic Wrap on a Candy

Step 1. Create the Candy

You may prepare a solid colour background or the one similar to the bottom.
Create a circle in any colour.

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Right click > Layer Properties > Inner Shadow. Adjust to the settings below.

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Add a Gradient Overlay, adjust to the settings like below.

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Click OK, and you will have something similar to this.

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Step 2. Create swirl in Illustrator

Open Illustrator, use the Pen tool and draw a rectangle like the one below. We will be using this shape as an Art Brush.

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Now CLICK and DRAG the rectangle into the Brush Panel. You will be prompted by a pop up box. Choose New Art Brush and click OK. Choose the direction of the brush and click OK.

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Now use the Spiral Tool, create a spiral.

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Select the spiral, and click on the Art Brush which you have just created.

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Step 3. Combining Swirl and Candy in Photoshop

Copy and paste the swirl as a smart object back in Photoshop. Add a mask, so that the swirl fits nicely on top of the candy.

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Right click > Layer Properties. Add an Inner Glow and Gradient Overlay to achieve similar to the bottom.

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Step 4. Adding Subtle Texture

Add in reflections. Draw 2 circles and 1 cresent. Bring down their opacity. You will get this.

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We are now going to add in a subtle texture to the lolly. Add a new layer,  Go to Filter > Render > Clouds. Then go to Noise > Add Noise and adjust to the settings below. Change the blending mode to Overlay.

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Step 5. Adding the Candy stick and Plastic Wrap

Draw a thin rectangle and add a gradient overlay to it.

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Give a slight warp to the candy so that it looks more natural.

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Using the pen tool, draw the wrapper and fill it in grey.

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Use the Dodge and Burn Tool and create highlights to the wrapper.

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Go to Filter > Artistic > Plastic Wrap

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Change the blend mode to Screen and bring down its opacity. Duplicate the layer and change blend mode to Overlay. Play around with the opacity levels to achieve the below.

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Step 6. Final Touches and Details

Set the brush tool to a light brownish colour to paint the string. To add in more depth, use a darker brown and paint over the edges.
Add in a Drop shadow so that it looks more realistic.

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Shadows were added around the edges of the plastic sheet, to make it more three dimensional. Finally, for some final touches, I added in some sparkles. Hope you enjoyed this tutorial!
Candy in Plastic Wrap

Plastic Wrap Hot Tip:

Performing a filter such as Plastic Wrap will change the look of the base layer completely. Thus, always duplicate a copy of that layer before applying the filter to it, so that you can make changes if you need later.

About this Author

Charlotte

Charlotte’s interest is in web interface and design as well as motion graphics. Her absorption with her work is mostly due to her attention to detail and passion for the world of design. Winding down after work, which consumes much of her time; she enjoys travelling, exploring new places, gastronomy, and fashion.

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3 Comments on “How To Plastic Wrap Your Candy With Photoshop And Illustrator”

  1. quite a hard image to make... but really great tutorial...

  2. thanks! you have some great stuff on your site as well.

  3. Thank you! Provide such good mould case

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