Snow Effect in Photoshop

Let’s try to add little snow to it.

Step 1. Duplicate background.

As usual, begin with pressing CTRL-J to duplicate “Background” layer. That will let you have a “backup” of the orginal image if something goes wrong.

Press CTRL-SHIFT-N to create new layer. Give it a name “Snow”.

Press SHIFT-F5 to fill new layer with white.

Select Filter – Noise – Add Noise.

Set Noise Amount to 100-150%, Gaussian distribution, Monochromatic NOT checked.

Press CTRL-A to Select All, then CTRL-T to Transform.

Use numeric input in the upper part of the window, set vertical and horizontal scale to 150-200%.

Use Image – Adjustments – Threshold. Set Threshold amount to 200-240, depending on how much snow you want.

Select Filter – Blur – Gaussian Blur. Set Radius to 0,5 – 1 pixels. Do not blur snow too much at this step.

My values are: Threshold – 243, Gaussian blur – 0,6 pixels.

Select Filter – Blur – Motion Blur. Set Distance to 8-12 pixels and try various directions.

Image after some editing:

• Create “Snow – 2” layer for small-sized snow using technique explained above, but do not increase noise size (as in Step 4) and set Threshold to 230-240 to have little amount of snow.
• Try to set opacity of “Snow” and “Snow – 2” layers to 60-80%.
• Make some areas less “snowy”. There are two ways to do that, “simple” and “advanced”. Simple way is to use Eraser tool in Brush mode with opacity set to 20-30% and remove snow from areas where it is unwanted.

  Advanced way is using layer mask; it’s non-destructive as you do not delete anything but simply hide it. Select
  Layer – Layer Mask – Reveal All, then take large soft brush, set brush opacity to 20-30%, press D to set foreground color to black and paint over the areas where you want to hide snow. Set brush color to white to reveal snow again.