Rain, Rain, Go Away: Photoshop Tutorial

This tutorial will teach you how to add a rain effect onto a particular image. I will be going through a few old and well known techniques that when put together can create a convincing rain effect.

We will be using this image by Kevin Beyrit, 2004:



Let's begin with the raindrops.

1. Create a new photoshop document of height: 200px Width: 400px.
2. Make your main colour on your pallete black and fill background layer.
3. Create a new layer over that.
4. Go to brushes and make sure it is on airbrush (has soft edges). Change the pen weight to 9.
5. Paint a single dot towards the left of the image.



6. Go to Filter > Stylise > Wind.



7. Repeat this five times times, or press [CTRL F] five times.



8. Go to Filter > Blur > Motion blur. Set Angle to 0 and Distance to 25 pixels.



9. Press Edit > Free Transform or CTRL T and rotate so that the rain drop is about 70 degrees to the ground plane.



10. Press Ctrl + I to inverse the image.



11. Press Ctrl + A to select the entire image.
11. Go to Edit > Define Brush Preset.
12. You now have a raindrop brush.

Adding an effect to the background

Now go back to the image of the werewolf. We need to prepare the background and either make it blurred or give it a light texture. For this particular picture, we will make a very simple rain effect.

1. Make a new layer above the picture.
2. Go to Filter > Render > Clouds.
3. Go to Filter > Noise > Add Noise.



4. Go to Filter > Blur > Motion blur.



5. Turn the blend mode to 'vivid light'.
6. Take the opacity down to 30%.

After experimenting with the Noise and Blur settings, I got something like this:



Darkening the image

Now for the sake of making this picture look more dramatic we will modify some of its tones.

1. Go onto the picture's layer.
2. Press CTRL L.
3. Change according to image:



Now we add the rain onto the image.

1. Go to the Brush Tool and look for the rain brush you created before in the Brush Palette.
2. Select Shape Dynamics in the Brush Palette.
3. First lets begin with the midground rain.
Under the Brush Presets Tab, change the master diametre of the brush to 90.
In the Shape Dynamics tab, change the Size Jitter to 50% and Angle Jitter to 1%



In the Scattering tab, change the Scatter: 1000%



Brush all of that on as desired.
Then turn the layer opacity to 50.




6. Next is the foreground rain. Change the master diametre of the brush to 180-250.
Size Jitter: 100%
Angle Jitter: 1%
Scatter: 1000%
Brush that on as desired.



Now for the best part....

1. Spashes can be created by selecting a 1px brush with a white colour.
2. Go to the Brush Palette.
3. Change these settings:
Scattering 1000%




Space: 580%



4. Now begin to brush it onto the fur. Direct splashes need to be more defined with a higher opacity. Light splashes need to have a lesser opacity. Change the spacing of the dots for indirect splashes, for example where the water is lightly covering the fur. Some splashes can be thrown into the air as if the werewolf is in movement. Be creative, every picture will require different brushing applications.



Light is the most important factor to consider in showing water, especially during the night. Water also flows downwards (crazy huh), so where water culminates and drains off, show this with more dense dots.



Add a colour balance over it to make it bluish.

1. Go to the bottom of the Layers window to the circle with half white and half black. Then go to Colour Balance...



2. Slide the bar slightly towards blue as desired.

And there we have it: a werewolf in the rain.

For even more dramatic effect, some hot mist could be added to come out from his nose and mouth and some highlights can be added on parts of the fur. This is what I got: