This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Control the Weather
In Photoshop, you can play Mother Nature, to a degree—by adding rain or snow to a picture. You can easily do so by using Photoshop's Light Rain and Blizzard Actions. However, there is more to the forecast, so to speak. Let's take a look.
My goal was to make this picture of a horse and rider taken on a sunny day look as though it was taken on a rainy afternoon (Figure 3.39). Before adding the rain, I needed to do some work on the photo, which has strong colors due to the bright sunlight.
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Tech info: Canon EOS 1D Mark II, Canon 70-200mm lens @ 200mm. Exposure: 1/500 sec. @ f/8. ISO 400.
My first step was to go to Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation and use the Saturation slider to desaturate the image (Figure 3.40). A setting of –51 did it.
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Pictures taken in the rain have cooler tones than pictures taken on sunny days. So, my next step was to choose Image > Adjustments > Color Balance and boost Blue by +11 (Figure 3.41).
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Rainy-day pictures also have less contrast than sunny-day pictures. I went to Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast and reduced the Contrast by –10 (Figure 3.42).
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It was time to add the rain. To do so, I applied the Light Rain Action (Figure 3.43).
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Whoa, partner! Now it looks like the rider is galloping through a light rain (Figure 3.44). I achieved my goal.
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