Adding Realistic Falling Snow to an Image.

[SteveZ]

Rense has invited me to submit this tutorial on how to simulate falling snow using PS. There are many methods to achieve this effect but I have found the one below is by far the easiest way to add realistic falling snow to your winter scenes.

1)Open your image and create a new layer.



2)Go to edit > fill > and fill entire image with white



3)Go to Filter >Noise > Add Noise
And move slider to 400%
Under “distribution” click on Gaussian
(for b&w images use “monochromatic”)



4)Next, to go Filter >Stylize > Diffuse
Select “Darken Only”
Click “okay"



5)While Holding down the control key,
Hit the “F” key a few times to adjust the intensity



6)Go to your layers palette and choose ‘screen” mode. Notice that the snow looks too sharp and unrealistic.



7)Go to filter > blur > motion blur. Adjusting the ‘angle’ will help simulate directional motion of falling snow. Using the ‘distance’ slider, you can adjust the intensity of the snow.



You can repeat this process if you like. I often make several layers of different opacity's for realism.




Good luck and have fun!

[JuDiThA]

Hey, thats pretty cool (and fun) Thanks for sharing
==Judy

[Rense]

Great work Steve!
Do you also have tutorial for adding rain or sunshine?

[D.Rodgers]

wow i can use this.Thanks Steve!

[felix.reichardt]

Great.

[leninglass]

Good tutorial. but is it only snowing at their area? What about in front of the camera. To fix that, Use a soft brush in a new layer and randomly click around the image and make the brush bigger and bigger till you are satisfied! not too much though.