How to Make Clouds in Photoshop

Have you ever taken a wonderful picture of a landscape setting with a bright, cloudless blue sky for a background then realized that the blue sky is actually boring? By using Photoshop, you can add clouds to spruce up a cloudless blue sky in any of your images.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Adobe Photoshop
• Outdoor image showing blue sky

1. 
    
   While the blue sky makes up a large portion of this image, a small portion of blue sky can have clouds added

   Choosing the right picture to add clouds to is important. It is easier if an image is chosen with a clear blue sky on a bright day that does not contain any clouds or the sun.

2. 
    
   When using the eyedropper tool, choose any shade of blue in the sky that appeals most to you

   Use the eyedropper tool to select the blue of the sky. Make sure that this blue is the foreground color and that plain white is the background color so that your clouds will look natural.

3. 
    
   A tolerance of 32 works well and will help make the image look as if you took the picture on a cloudy day

   Use the magic wand tool to select the blue sky. Remember to select the blue sky interspersed between the branches of trees or buildings. The image would look less natural if a large portion had clouds but any sky behind an object did not. Make a layer via copy of the selected area.

4. 
    
   The clouds were rendered twice in the finished version of this image

   Choose "Filter" on the top toolbox, then render the clouds. This will give you the effect of clouds on the blue sky. This entire step can be redone as many times as you would like until you find a pattern that appeals to you most and looks the most natural on the image.

5. 
    
   The cloudless sky in this image is now filled with clouds

   If the image of the clouds is too harsh, then use the "Opacity" button in the "Layers" toolbox to get the shade of clouds you would like to use most. Lowering the opacity will make the clouds look softer and not as crowded.

Tips & Warnings

• Experiment with adding layers of clouds for different effects.
• Save your original image in case you do not care for the clouds you create.