I ran into a problem when animating my "Bumblebee Kayaker" GIF entry and was hoping someone could help find the solution. Here's the entry: http://photoshopcontest.com/view-entry/178434/bumblebee-kayaker-gif.html

Here's the problem: I was unable to make water ripples because I couldn't find out how to make the angle of the ripples match the angle of the water surface.

I've found that the most realistic way to create the kind of water ripple rings that extend from where a drop of water hits the surface is to use the ZigZag tool (Filter>Distort>ZigZag). When you select "pond ripples", you can make perfect ripple distortions but the problem is that I CAN'T FIGURE OUT HOW TO CHANGE THE ANGLE OF THE RIPPLES. As it is, the ripples are at a straight up-and-down angle and I need them to match the angle of the water in the entry.

I was able to use this feature in my "96 Tears" entry because the default angle of the ZigZag ripples worked with the angle of the source picture: http://photoshopcontest.com/view-entry/178067/96-tears-gif.html

So far, the only way I can think to get this desired effect is to adjust the perspective of the layer in the opposite direction, add the ripples, and then readjust the perspective of the layer back to the original angle. This just seems like way too much work (when animating frame-by-frame) and I'm sure there's an easy way to adjust the angles of these ripples when creating them. Any help would be greatly appreciated

i don't do much with animation but when i use the zigzag filter i always have to adjust the perspective by hand using transform not sure if there is any other way to do it unless maybe you could set up a photoshop action that would do it for each individual frame but you would still have to set that up manually so probably not much help

When I want circular ripples that are tilted away from the viewer, I distort the image with reverse perspective (making a rectangle into an inverse trapezoid), then ripple it, then distort it back to a rectangle.
Like this:
http://photoshopcontest.com/view-entry/142715/low-tide.html

That's the idea I already had which would work fine for one still image. My problem is that I have about 20 frames to animate (which means 20 different layers to add ripples in succession). It just seems unreal that there is no adjustment for this in the ZigZag panel. For example, if you are adding radial motion blur, you can move the sample plane around to adjust the center point of the radial blur in the final image. There HAS to be a way to do this with the angle of ZigZag ripples!!

I think I might have found an answer (even though it's not the answer I hoped to find). It seems that the ripples conform to the shape of the layer. If you use the Elliptical Marque Tool to select a section of the water layer and copy it to a new layer, the ZigZag ripple angle will appear to conform to the angle of the elliptical shape.

I found this info here: http://www.photoshopessentials.com/photo-effects/water-ripples/

I still would like to know if there is a way to manually adjust the angle from the ZigZag panel.

if you select something with the marquee tool you can right click and select transform selection and transform the selection don't know if that helps

I don't know much about the "transform selection". What does it do for the angle of ZigZag ripples?

But if you get elliptical ripples from an elliptical marquee, the center of the ripple will be in the center, making the ripple look concave (dished). A perspectivised ripple will have the center nearer the top.

I totally agree and that is why I mentioned that it was not exactly the answer that I was hoping for. However, I could play with the perspective adjustment of the elliptical layer (correcting the centered ripples) and automate the action on the other duplicated layers in the animation. This is as close as I can get to an answer at this point. I still believe that there HAS to be a way to adjust the perspective angle in the ZigZag menu.

if you make a selection and transform it to the right perspective the ripples might conform to it not sure though here check this out not sure if this is what you are looking for but this is how i change it to make it conform

http://www.photoshopessentials.com/photo-effects/water-ripples/page-2.php

The reverse perspective thing is great. I new with changing the perspective from the bottom of the image only, the ripples just didn't look right. Sometimes PS just doesn't have what you need at hand and you have to experiment to find something that works.
I don't want to change the subject... but I'm working with ole PS seven. I understand newer versions have an edge softener. All my selections look like they the were truly chopped out with an ax. The stuff I see on here... well, the transitions are remarkably sharp. I can use some fine blur but it's quit noticeable and I'm never satisfied with it. All my work comes out with fuzzy transitions either way.
Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

My best suggestion for cutting out a selection is the polygonic lasso tool. It's pretty time consuming, but it's my favorite way to select with because it's so precise. From my personal experience, any of the quick selection tools aren't as precise because you end up with bleeding pixels around the edges. I zoom WAY in so that I can see where the pixels blend at the edge of an object and cut right around it with the polygonic lasso tool.

depending on the situation I most of the time use the pen tool then right click and make a selection then you can soften edges with the blur tool

I don't even know what a GIF is....

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics_Interchange_Format