Photoshop Rain Effect - Adding Rain To A Photo

Step 8: Reduce The Amount Of Noise And Increase Its Contrast

We're going to use Levels to both reduce the amount of noise we have and to boost the contrast in the noise that's left over. With the Levels dialog box open, you'll see a large graph in the top half. This is called a Histogram. We don't need to get into details about it here, but directly below the histogram, you'll see three sliders - a black one on the left, a white one on the right, and a gray one in the middle. Click on the black one on the left and begin dragging it towards the right.

As you do, you'll start to see some of the noise disappearing in the image. Then click on the white one on the right and begin dragging it towards the left, which will increase the contrast in the noise that's left over:

Don't worry about the gray slider in the middle. It will move on its own as you drag the black and white ones. You can use the screenshot above as a guide on how far to move the black and white sliders, or simply experiment on your own until your image looks less like a whole bunch of noise and more like a starry night:

Click OK in the top right of the Levels dialog box when you're done to exit out of it.

Step 9: Apply The Motion Blur Filter To The Noise

All of this noise that's left over in our image is going to become our rain. It doesn't look much like rain yet, but we're going to help it out by applying the "Motion Blur" filter, which is going to give our rain some movement and direction. Before we can apply the filter to the noise though, we first need to select it in the Layers palette, since we currently have the Levels adjustment layer selected. Click on "Layer 2" to select it:

Now that we have the correct layer selected, go back up to the Filter menu at the top of the screen, select Blur, and then select Motion Blur, which brings up the "Motion Blur" dialog box. You can set the direction that the rain is falling by adjusting the Angle option. I'm going to set my angle to about 60°. Then enter a value of about 50 pixels for the Distance, although you may need to experiment a little with that value depending on the size of your image, but 50 pixels works well for a standard 4x6 photo:

Click OK to exit out of the dialog box.

Step 10: Re-Adjust The Black And White Sliders In Levels As Needed

Depending on how far you dragged your black and white sliders in the Levels dialog box earlier, your noise may have now disappeared completely in your image after applying the Motion Blur filter. To bring it back, simply re-adjust the sliders by double-clicking directly on the thumbnail for the Levels adjustment layer in the Layers palette:

This brings back the Levels dialog box, and since we're using an adjustment layer, we can go back to re-adjust the sliders as often as we want without damaging our image. You'll probably need to drag the black slider back a little towards the left in order to bring your noise back into view, and you may want to drag the white slider a bit more to the left as well to add more contrast:

Again, you can use the screenshot above as a guide, but you're better off experimenting with the sliders while keeping an eye on your image. Once you've managed to bring the noise back, click OK to again exit out of the dialog box. Your image should now look something like this:

If you look closely along the top and bottom edges of the image, you'll see that things look a little strange, and that's because of the problem I mentioned at the beginning of the tutorial with the Motion Blur filter having trouble around edges. No worries though because we added extra space around the edges, so none of that problem area is going to affect our photo. In fact, we'll be cropping it away in the very next step.