How to Make Fallen Snow in Photoshop

Adding snow to Photoshop images requires painting techniques that go back to the earliest versions of the software. Creating absolute photorealism is difficult, but if you need to produce a winter image for a holiday publication that goes to press well in advance, Photoshop snow may well be the solution you need.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

1. Open your image in Photoshop. Try for a simple scene with relatively little detail until you become more experienced. A window or door scene will require far less detail work than tree branches or houses with multiple windows, porches and steps. As you become more skilled and experienced you can tackle more complex images.

2. Create a new layer above the image for your snow. You will have an easier time fixing snow painted on its own layer than you will if you paint directly onto the image pixels.

3. Paint with white on the snow layer. Use a large soft-edged brush for large and distant areas and a smaller hard-edged brush for close-in areas and areas requiring more detail.

4. Add a minimal amount of noise for texture. Command click on the snow layer thumbnail in the layer palette to select the painted area. Apply the noise filter with a setting of one or two percent. Make sure to check the Gaussian option.

5. Smooth the selection with the Gaussian Blur filter. Use a radius of 0.1 pixels. (If you want to keep a little more of the texture, use the "Fade Filter" command with a setting of 50 percent in soft light blend mode.)

Tips & Warnings

• Adjust the filter settings for a stronger texture.
• If you have Photoshop CS3 you can convert the snow layer to a smart object before you apply filters. The filters will be applied as smart filters, on which you can tweak settings until you get them just right.
• Study winter photographs to get a feeling for depth of field and focus. The more you can use real images of snow for your model, the better the results you will get.