Have you ever looked at one of your photos and thought about how cool it would look with different weather conditions? Maybe some dark clouds and lightning would make this one a whole different shot. Maybe that plain, blue sky could use a few puffy, white clouds. How about that mountain photo you took last year – how cool would that be with some snow added?
I probably don't need to bother mentioning that any of these effects and more can be accomplished in Photoshop. Let's face it; if you can think of something that needs to be done to an image, there's probably a way to get it done with Photoshop – eventually. The big question is, how to do it without spending days painstakingly cutting and pasting or drawing in the elements you want to add. Then, of course, there's the question of how to make it look natural.
The answer to that first, big question is having the right brushes available. Almost anything can be turned into a brush in Photoshop, once you know the technique. This isn't a tutorial on that. Sorry. I'll cover that in another article. On the other hand, for the weather effects we're talking about here, you don't need to know how to create them, because you're going to find out below how to get an awesome set of them.
Now, about that second question – the matter of making it look natural: It's about balancing the quantity and color temperature of the light. Photoshop gives you several ways to do this, with gradient fills, masking, camera filter effects like cooling filters for snow scenes and other techniques that you'll find covered in detail in PhotographyTalk's PT+ lab.
By now, you're probably wondering if this article is going to tell you how to do anything. Actually, I'm going to go one step further than that. I'm going to let one of the leading Photoshop wizards, Serge Ramelli show you. In the video below, he's going to explain how to use brushes to create weather and atmospheric effects and he's going to demonstrate some basic lighting adjustments to make them look more natural.
He's also going to give you the opportunity to grab one of the most valuable sets of Photoshop brushes you'll find anywhere at a great discount. Trust me; I've spent a lot of time creating brushes and this set is going to save you enough time to pay for itself many times over.
Without further ado, here's the video. You're welcome.