Rain Effect

Sometimes a rainy day picture never appears as convincing as it really was. Enter Photoshop!

With our image opened in Photoshop call up the layers palette Window >Show Layers or hit F7 on the keyboard. Now duplicate the image by dragging it over the Create New Layer tab and re-name it Rain. by double clicking on the new layer in the Layers Pallet and typing Rain in the Layer Option palette window

Working on our new Rain layer we need to add some noise - Filter > Noise >Add Noise, and click the Gaussian and Monochromatic buttons within the 'noise palette'. Try experimenting with the settings, but for this image an amount of 100 was chosen.

To make the rain more realistic add Motion Blur, Filter> Blur> Motion Blur, and selecting an angle to look like falling rain. An angle of 67 and a distance of 16 pixels were selected, but try experimenting with different settings you may find some that suit your image.

We can now blend the layers together in the Layers Pallet by adjusting the opacity until we are happy with the effect - in this case 'normal mode' and 66% were selected. You might also like try using different blend modes. The lighten mode makes the image look more like a shower with the sun just breaking through! Finally 'flatten' the image and save.

Click to enlarge