Upon the Filthy Sorrow the Snow Falls Lightly Again Today

Taking photos in the falling snowfall is hard. It's cold, your gear gets wet, and everyone ends upwardly grumpy. Why bother going outside at all when you lot can fake it in Photoshop? Here's how.

Stride One: Choice a Suitable Paradigm

Calculation falling snow to a sunny embankment photo where everyone's in a bikini is never going to expect realistic. The brilliant sunlight is pretty much a dead giveaway that it's not actually snowing. For the outcome to piece of work, y'all need to pick an image where information technology could plausibly be snowing. If you've got some photos from a cloudy mean solar day where there's snow on the ground, perfect. Otherwise, simply pick something dark and wintery like my shot beneath. Information technology'southward the kind of photo where it'due south totally conceivable that a big snowfall had only started.

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Earlier continuing, you should too make whatever other edits you want to the paradigm. If you're stuck for ideas, check out my commodity on how to improve pretty much any digital photo. The tips I cover in that are bang-up for taking a kind of wintery photo and turning it into a really wintery photo.

Step 2: Getting Started

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Open up up the photo yous're using in Photoshop. I'k using Photoshop CC18, only these tools should exist bachelor in whatever recent version. You should also exist able to replicate a lot of the steps in most proficient image editors.

Go to Layer > New Layer, or press Command+Shift+N on your keyboard (Command+Shift+N on a Mac) to create a new layer. Call information technology something like "Snowfall" and click OK.

Next, go to Edit > Fill, set the Contents to Black, the Blending Mode to Normal, and the Opacity to 100%, then click OK.

You should now be looking at a pure black layer. Believe it or not, this is what nosotros're going to make snow from.

Step 3: Bring the Noise

Go to Filter > Noise > Add together Noise.

Gear up the Corporeality to 200%, the Distribution to Gaussian, and make sure Monochromatic is checked. Then click OK.

Next, go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur.

Enter a Radius of somewhere between two and seven. The lower the value, the smaller your snowflakes volition exist. I've gone with 4.

Step Four: Creating the Snowflakes

Get to Image > Adjustments > Threshold.

A Threshold adjustment turns every pixel above a certain value white and every pixel beneath it black. Elevate the small arrow around until you lot get something that starts to look similar snowflakes. I've gone with a value of 124; yours will probably be somewhere near the same.

Next, in the Layers Panel, select the Snow layer and change its blend mode to Screen.

This will remove all the black and only leave the white snowflakes.

Footstep 5: Blending the Snowflakes In

Now we've got something that's starting to look like snowflakes, but they're kind of sitting on superlative of the image, rather than looking like part of it. Permit'due south start blending them in a little better.

Go to Filter > Blur > Move Mistiness.

There aren't really any set Motility Blur settings that will piece of work for every paradigm. Play effectually with the Angle and Distance until you get something that looks good for yours. I've gone with an Angle of -51º and a Distance of 13 Pixels.

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Next, go to Layer > Layer Mask > Reveal All or click the Layer Mask icon in the Layers Panel to add together a white mask to the Snowfall layer. For more on layers and masks, check out my full lesson.

Select the Brush tool with the keyboard shortcut B and press D to reset information technology to the default colors. Printing Ten so that black is the foreground colour. From the Brush Tool Options, select a Soft Circular Brush. Set the size to something squeamish and big, I've gone with 600. Set up the Opacity to 100 and the Menstruation to xx.

Right now, the snowflakes fall evenly across the image. This isn't great because they kind of obscure the model, Dani. Take your brush and, with the mask selected, paint a few times over the areas of the paradigm you don't want the snowflakes to fall so heavily. It'due south simply a small change merely now you tin see Dani'south face up more clearly.

Step Six: Adding More than Snowflakes

And that'southward it, you've at present applied some awesome looking snowflakes to your image. The concluding (optional) step is to go back and add another layer or two of snowflakes with unlike values. I've added one more with the following values:

• Noise: 200%.
• Gaussian Blur: 7.
• Threshold: 121.
• Motion Mistiness: -15º and 21 pixels.

I likewise made sure to mask out Dani's face again.

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Adding snowflakes is i of those simple Photoshop techniques that you tin apply every year. I always apply it to whatsoever Christmas bill of fare I'm forced to make for my mother.

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Source: https://www.howtogeek.com/334113/how-to-add-falling-snow-to-your-photos-with-photoshop/