Q&A: How to create rain in Photoshop

Digital drizzle

I’m trying to create a James Dean-style city scene with a model walking in the rain. I’ve got some source files shot on a pleasant day, but would like to add rain to them in Photoshop. How do I do this?
Alistair Webster

Shooting rain for real can be tricky, as it’s hard to get it to show up in-camera. The speed of rain requires a fast shutter speed to capture it. If you have a wide aperture, most of the rain will be out of focus anyway due to shallow depth of field. Here are some rain-making tricks…

01
Clouding over  Create a new layer and hit D to set your toollbox’s foreground/background colours to black and white. Go to Filter>Render>Clouds to fill the layer with a fractal cloud pattern. In Filter>Noise>Add Noise, set Amount to 400% and hit OK to create particles.

02
Rain…  To get streaks of rain go to Filter>Blur>Motion Blur. Set Direction to -62, Distance 94px. Hit OK. Image>Adjustments> Equalize the layer to increase contrast. Set the blending to Lighten so only white rain is visible. Go to Filter>Blur>Blur More to soften the rain.

03
Wind  To get wind-blown rain go Filter>Distort> Wave. Make Number of Generators 1, and both Wavelength Min and Max 900. Set Amplitude Min to 81/Max to 146. Hit OK. This displaces rain as if it’s being buffeted by wind. Reduce the rain’s opacity for a subtle look.