How to Create Realistic Rain in Photoshop

Make it rain in photoshop. In this tutorial, I will show you how you can create rain in photoshop. Create realistic rain in photoshop.

Create Realistic Rain In Photoshop

Hello everybody. My name is Charles. In this video, I’m gonna show you how to create realistic rain in Photoshop. Let’s make it rain. The first thing we need to do is create a pattern, something that looks like rain. And there’s a lot of ways to do this. But luckily, Photoshop has something built in and we can use that. Let’s see how that looks.

I’m gonna come up here to File, New and create a 10-by-10 custom document. This is a new document we’re creating. Say create. And now, if you come up here to actions and under Image Affects, there’s something called Light Rain. So I’m gonna select that in my Actions panel and click on the play button. And disable my background layer. And there is our pattern that we’re gonna use.

Use the Levels Adjustment Layer to Create Realistic Rain In Photoshop

So now we need to make it look a little bit more like rain. So I’m gonna get a levels adjustment and I’m gonna take the slider on the left and bring that over a little bit and zoom in here. You can see the rain and we’re gonna rename this layer Rain. And we we can add a little bit of motion blur to this. If you come up here to Filter, Blur, Motion Blur. And the distance is what you would use to move some of that around and put that about 80 degrees or -80 degrees and you can adjust this adjustment until you see that it looks like a nice-looking rain. You can say OK.

So now I’m just gonna merge this Levels layer into the Rain level. Command + E. So now we need to copy this over into our working image. So on the rain layer, if I say Command + C and bring it over here to our image we’re gonna work in. Command + V and there is our rain layer. In fact, we’re gonna call this Small Rain. Now that we have our rain sample here in our image, let’s scale it up. Control or Command + T and if we hold the Alt or Option and the Shift key and we can scale from the center.

We’re gonna make this about the same size as our document here. And click the checkmark. Now we’re gonna change the blend mode of the Small Rain layer to screen. Now let’s change the direction of the rain. I think the way the umbrella is pointing and I see some moisture back here on the bushes and the top of the umbrella and the angle that she’s holding this, I think it might look better of the rain were kind of coming down in the other direction. So I’m gonna say Command + T, right-click and flip this horizontal. And up here in the top corner, you can see I have a two-sided arrow and that means that I can rotate my rain. I’m gonna rotate it a little bit here. Reduce the size here. I can pan over and I’m going to make it a little bit bigger also. And click my checkmark. So there’s the small rain. Here’s before, and here’s the after. Create realistic rain in photoshop.

And if need be, you can fine-tune this rain by bringing up another levels adjustment. This little icon right here. It will allow you to clip the levels adjustment to the layer below so that when you adjust it, you’re just affecting the small rain layer and in this case, you can change the midpoint slider and you can make it show up a little bit more. Something like that. Now we’re gonna do, this is the small rain. We’re actually gonna put that rain behind her and the umbrella to give this image a little bit more depth. Create realistic rain in photoshop.

Create Realistic Rain In Photoshop Behind the Subject

So I’m gonna make a copy of the background layer. Command + J and I’m gonna use the select subject. And Photoshop is doing its thing. It’s selected the select pretty good. But now, I want to actually select the umbrella too. So I’m gonna come up here and use the Quick Selection tool. Use my right bracket to make my brush a little bit bigger. And just bring this out and select the umbrella. Just like that and come down here to add layer mask, hold my Alt or Option key down and now I have a layer mask and so that I can have the small ring behind her, I’m gonna copy the mask to this small rain layer up here. First, I’m gonna click on this chain right here so that this layer mask is no longer linked. I’m gonna hold Alt or Option down and drag the layer mask up. I’m gonna disable the subject layer because I really don’t need it. But now you can see that the small rain is behind her and you can make adjustments to any of these sliders on the levels adjustment on that particular rain layer.

Hey, if you’re getting value out of this so far, hit that Like button. If we duplicate this small rain layer, Command + J, and bring it all the way up to the top, make sure you don’t lose your clipping on the layers below. Let’s call this Large Rain and I don’t need this layer mask here. Create realistic rain in photoshop.

Transform Layers to Create Realistic Rain In Photoshop

So now to make the rain a little bit more believable, what we can do is transform the Large Rain layer and kind of rotate it and we’re gonna stretch it out a little bit. So Command + T and we can rotate it a little bit. I guess not all rain goes in the same direction and pull it out a little bit to make it a little bit bigger. You can move it, you click the checkmark and if need be, add a levels adjustment layer and clip it to that layer below and if you have too much rain, you can increase the left-hand slider with the shadows or you can adjust the midpoint. You see that. Adjusting the midpoint, it’ll bring in more to whatever you like. And if at any time, you can go back to any of the rain layers and you can reduce the opacity. It’s way too much. But you can reduce the opacity if it looks like it’s too much on any of these layers, any of the rain layers. Create realistic rain in photoshop.

Also on this large rain, you can add some more motion blur. Come up here to Filter, Blur, Motion Blur and you can add a little bit of motion blur. Now, if you need more rain, like in this case with the small rain behind her, we’d select the Small Rain layer and its accompanying levels adjustment. Say Command + J. And you can see there was more rain back there. So that’s how you would add more rain. And if I think there’s too much on this Small Rain copy, I can bring my opacity down just a little bit. Create realistic rain in photoshop.

Duplicate Layers for More Rain to Create Realistic Rain In Photoshop

So that’s how you would add more rain. Just duplicate these layers and you can also transform the layers. You can angle the rain so it doesn’t have the same pattern. So you can rotate it, you could stretch it more. You can get really creative with the way this rain looks so it doesn’t look like it’s coming down in the same direction and the same patterns. In fact, I wanted to make that one bigger. And I don’t even need the subject layer no more and Shift + click all of your rain layers. Say Command + G to group them together. Call it Rain. Let’s add a color lookup adjustment layer. And let’s choose something like teal orange and let’s take down the opacity and give it a little LUT there. There’s no rain. And there’s the rain. There’s before and there’s the after. Create realistic rain in photoshop.

See the previous Photoshop article here 👉 https://charlescabrera.com/create-any-kind-of-vignette-in-photoshop/

See my photography website here 👉 https://www.charlescabreraphotography.com