How to create snow in Photoshop CS4

It's officially winter, and though the holiday season is behind us, you may still want to add spice to your seasonal pictures. Here in the South, snow isn't as frequent and when it does happen, you might not have your camera to capture that magical moment. However, you'll still be able to dress up your photograph and add snow in later. In this tutorial, we're going to look at how to create falling snow in Photoshop CS4.

First, open the picture you want to use in Photoshop. I'm using a stock photo of snow on the ground from MorgueFile. Once you've opened the picture, find the color swatches at the bottom left of the workspace in the Tools panel. Click on the first one and use the color picker to change the color to white. Then select the brush tool from the Tools panel and navigate to the top bar along the workspace. Change the brush tip size to 5 px and the hardness to 0%. Also find the opacity dropdown next to the brush mode dropdown and change it to 55%.



We need to customize the brush a little more, so go to the top bar and click on Window. From the list, choose Brushes so the Brushes window will show.



Click on Brush Tip Shape in the Brushes window and look at the options. Go to the bottom of the window where it says Spacing. Change the spacing to a higher number, such as 386%, to break up the continuous line into individual dots.



Now click on Scattering to select the checkbox and scatter the dots. Make sure the checkbox for both axes is selected and move the scatter slider to 1000%. Make sure the count is set to 1 and the count jitter to 100%.



It's time to create a new layer so we won't mess up the background if we don't like the outcome. Go to the top bar and click on Layer then New then Layer.



Now take the brush tool and start making diagonal strokes in the direction you want the wind to be blowing. Just give it a very slight angle to make it realistic. Brush over the whole picture and then go back over it with curly-cue motions to give it more body. If you need to, you can duplicate the layer by pressing Ctrl + J and then use the move tool to make more snowflakes.



At this point, we're almost done but we need to make the snow more realistic and make it look like it's in motion. Go to the top bar and click on Filter, then Blur, then Motion Blur.



When the Motion Blur dialogue box comes up, set the angle of the blur to whatever you'd like; I've set mine to 45 degrees. You should also set the distance relatively low (I've chosen 8 px). Don't go lower than 7 px or it won't look realistic.



At this point, we're done! Creating a snowy effect isn't hard to do - and it can make your seasonal photographs or cards look all the nicer.



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