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Posted on 12/10/07 1:22:36 PM |
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GKB
Magical Montagist Posts: 3732 Reply  |
Snow effect
This is the method that I used to create a winter’s day snow scene from a photograph taken during a warm summer’s day where we go from this image: 
To this one. 
The effect relies on the Channel Mixer to selectively turn some of the green foliage to white. The first thing to do is duplicate the background layer. This is not essential but it does mean that you can mask certain parts of the altered layer to show some of the colour. Using the duplicated layer go to Layer>New Adjustment layer>Channel Mixer. Drag the Green slider to the right to read +200%. Drag the blue slider to the left to read -200%. Check the ‘Monochrome’ tick box. Hit ‘OK’. Now, in the layers palette, change the blending mode of the Adjustment Layer to either ‘screen’ or ‘lighten’. With this particular image I used ‘screen’. By going back to the Channel Mixer layer you can alter the amount of ‘snow’ by moving the blue slider to the right. You can also move the red slider to the right but if you move it to the left (less than 100%) the effect decreases markedly. In this particular image I had to make a layer mask to let the aircraft show through or you can just copy it to its own layer. Selective Layer Masking with a soft brush at low opacity will let some of the bottom layer show through. Now hide all the layers except the bottom one. Using the ‘Magic Wand’ tool set at a low tolerance Shift-Click around the walls of the house where you feel that snow should not settle. When you think you have selected enough wall just give it a slight feather and Cmd-J the selection to a new layer. Drag that layer to the top. |
Posted on 12/10/07 4:45:56 PM |
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srowden
Detail Devil Posts: 114 Reply  |
Re: Snow effect
 sounds very easy and gives a really nice clean snow effect.
Bookmarked in case I ever come across some sort of project that involves snow |
Posted on 30/10/07 9:43:35 PM |
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Progenic
** Posts: 104 Reply  |
Re: Snow effect
Hi GKB nice effect i like the surreal nature of the image. Im not sure wheather you are familiar with 'IR' photography that is Infra Red imaging. If you buy an infra red filter for your SLR (D-SLR) and put it on a tri-pod you can get some fantastic effects very similar to this, only perhaps more surreal and slightly spooky. All leaves and all 'green' plants become totally white, as if bleached with snow. You initially get a very strange pink/red colour cast over the image, but that is easily removed in photoshop. Which then leaves just the infra red light image. Try it sometime, i have tried to duplicate the effect in photoshop but without success. J  |