Photoshop Tutorials: Adding Rain To A Photo
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Written By Steve Patterson
Most of us would prefer to avoid being caught in the rain if possible, especially if we have our cameras with us. But what if you're one of a large number of people who enjoy taking photos of weather? Even if weather photography isn't your main interest, there's no denying that rain adds a whole new dimension to your images. So how do you capture photos of rain without getting your camera all wet?
Easy! Wait till it stops raining, take the picture, then add the rain back in using Photoshop, which is exactly what we're going to learn how to do in this photo effects tutorial.
Here's the photo I'll be working with for this effect:
And here's the same image after adding the rain in Photoshop. It's really coming down out there!
Let's get started.
Step 1: Duplicate The Background Layer
The first thing we need to do for this effect is duplicate our Background layer. With our image open in Photoshop, we can see in the Layers palette that we currently have one layer, which is named Background. This layer contains our original image:
We need to create a copy of this layer, so let's use the quick keyboard shortcut, Ctrl+J (Win) / Command+J (Mac). Nothing will seem to have happened in the document window, but if we look again in our Layers palette, we can see that we now have two layers - the original Background layer on the bottom, and a copy of it, which Photoshop has named "Layer 1", above it:
Step 2: Add Some Extra Canvas Space Around The Image
The next thing we're going to do is add some extra canvas space around the image. The reason is because we're going to be using the "Motion Blur" filter on the image, and the Motion Blur filter tends to run into problems when dealing with edges, so we're going to make things easier on it by giving it a little more space around the edges to work with. You'll see what I mean later on, but for now, let's add some extra canvas space. Before we do that though, let's reset our Foreground and Background colors in Photoshop by pressing D on the keyboard. This sets black as the Foreground color and white as the Background color. We can see this in the color swatches near the bottom of the Tools palette:
Now let's add our canvas space. For that, we'll use the Crop Tool. Select it from the Tools palette, or simply press C on your keyboard:
Then, with the Crop Tool selected, click and drag a selection around the entire image. If you're working with your image displaying inside a document window, press F on your keyboard to switch Photoshop to Full Screen Mode With Menu Bar, which will make things easier. Then just click outside the top left corner of the image and drag down below the bottom right corner.
When you release your mouse button, you'll see little square handles all around the image. Hold down the Alt (Win) / Option (Mac) key and drag either the left or right handle outward to add space on both sides of the image. Holding down Alt or Option tells Photoshop to move the handles on both sides at once, which makes things easier for us. Add an extra inch or two on the sides. Then do the same thing for the top and bottom. Hold down Alt/Option and drag either the top or bottom handle to add the same amount of space above and below the image. Don't worry about adding too much space because we'll be cropping it away later anyway. For now, it's better to add too much than not enough:
When you're done dragging out the handles, press Enter (Win) / Return (Mac), and Photoshop will fill the extra space with our current Background color which is white:
