How to Create Realistic Snowfalls in Photoshop

This tutorial is about how to create softly falling snow in Photoshop. Hopefully, this will help the basic level of students in a great deal as it is about basic techniques of creating this effect.

First of all, open the image that you want to work with. Double-click the layer and name it Backup. Then duplicate it by pressing Ctrl + J and name the new layer Background. Finally, create a Fill Layer by going to Layer> New Fill Layer. Pick a dark gray color and place it between the two layers. First, select the Magic Wand Tool (W) and while holding Shift, create a rough selection of the sky by clicking on various places in the sky. Then, go to Layer> Layer Mask> Hide Selection to create your mask. With your layer selected, open the Properties panel and click on Mask Edge. With the Refine Mask window now open, you can brush on the image to refine the mask. Adjust your brush size in the upper panel. Then, you can reduce the brush size, zoom in on your image and carefully paint over the borders of your selection to paint out the white fringe.

Once the mask is done, add the new background sky. First, create a Gradient Fill layer and select Gradient. Make sure the gradient is set to 90° and Double-click on the gradient image to edit it. Then, create a new layer. Select the Brush Tool, pick a dark blue color (#303850) and paint over the trees. Name the layer Hue, set its Blending Mode to Hue, and its opacity to 35%. Since the haze is in the background, it shouldn’t cover the legs. To correct this, select the Haze and the Hue layers, and hit Ctrl + G to group them together. Then, give the group a mask by going to Layer> Layer Mask> Reveal All. Then, with a hard black brush, paint over the woman in order to remove the haze.

Generate the snowflakes next. After finished, make some color correction from the adjustment panel. That should end the procedure. In this way, you can photo edit and create this realistic effect. Hope that helps!