Falling snow/rain effect.

This tutorial will help you create realistic snow or rain! Both in one tutorial.


Open up an image in Photoshop. Make sure that this image is your Background layer.
I'm going to be using this picture I took last week downtown (feel free to use it):


Then, duplicate your background layer so that you now have two of the same layers (Layer>>Duplicate Layer).



Create a new layer (Layer>>New>>Layer) and if it isn't filled in white, choose the paint bucket and fill it in with the color white.

Then change the layer type to dissolve with 1% opacity and 55% fill.


If there are too many dots then lower the fill more. If there are too little, just raise it. Change the fill until you find the right amount of 'snow'.
You should have something like this:



Ew. The snow looks pixelly. Let's smooth it out so it looks like actual snow.

Merge (ctrl+e) the snow layer (which should be layer 2 if you've started it out the way I did) with the duplicate of your background.

Now let's blur the top layer! Go to Filter>>Blur>>Motion Blur.
*If you are on a solid colored background, then you may adjust the blur to any degree and distance to your heart's content. you can also make this look more like *rain* by choosing a very high distance. =)
Now, change the distance to any number that looks good on your image. If you're not using a solid image, I suggest choosing around 1-7, but whatever floats your boat!
And make the angle slanted.

These were my stats:


Ew. Now your BACKGROUND is blurry (if it isn't a solid color).
Just simply change the layer mode into another! Depending on your image, I'd suggest choosing either light, overlay, screen, or multiply. For my image, I chose screen. Now, this looks more like it! It can be snow or rain, depending on how you look at it and perhaps the image and blur distance. =)

My final product:





*note
You can make realistic rain on clearly on a solid background. I'm not sure on a real image though.. I guess it would depend on the image.
Anyway, here's an example of the rain effect:

Thanks; cool effect :D

It works better if you create a new blank layer and merge it with the 'snow' layer instead of blurring your original image. That way the image is clear, but the snow is moving.

So, for this part : "Merge (ctrl+e) the snow layer (which should be layer 2 if you've started it out the way I did) with the duplicate of your background. "

Don't do that... instead create a new, empty layer and merge with the white dissolve pixel layer. Then add motion blur.

This means you can make rain on any image, not just solid colour, just bu increasing the motion blur.

you need to create a new layer filled white

i'm having the same situation as NemoMeca. >

Thanks! It helps!

how do i get the dots on the picture?! help.

Awesome Effects, Im Going To Add This Tutorial To My Picture. Im Going To Make People Think Its Snowing.

Author	lovescream
Submitted on	Sep 30, 2006
Page views	60,790
Favorites	81
Comments	7

snow, rain, blizzard, effect