Create a rainy window in Photoshop.
Designers in Seattle may appreciate why this tip spoke to us this week. We've been looking out over a rainy Seattle skyline for most of the month.
If you'd like to recreate your own rainy window scene, check out the ingenious Rainy Day Photoshop actions from Panos FX. This action set works in Photoshop CS and CS2, and does a nice job of making your images look as if they are seen through a rain soaked, foggy window.
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Download and apply the Rainy Day actions
One you've downloaded the Rainy day.atn actions file , choose Load Actions... from the fly-out menu in the upper right of Photoshop's Actions palette. A new Rainy day action should now be available at the bottom of that palette.
Run the MAIN ACTION first. You will be guided by several instruction dialog boxes while the action is running. These stops let you also control the various filters that are applied.
After running the main action there are two extra actions that let you add a layer of smaller drops and a layer of condensed vapor to finish off the window effect.
The resulting layers should look something like this:
Source: We discovered this Photoshop action on the Creative Guy blog some time ago. We can see the Space Needle from our office window, and can vouch that this Photoshop effect is a fairly good rendition of what we've been experiencing lately.
Comments
Nice effect. I'll use it soon I'm sure. But when I'll need to see if I can figure out a way-- as would be mandated by your photo example-- to make the drops appear to be on the "outside" of the window.
Thanks again for the action.
Warm regards from Dayton, Ohio
Michael
Posted by: Michael | November 20, 2006 06:06 AM
I'm trying to open this up in my photoshop but it won't let me open up the action. What do I need to do?
Posted by: Michael Gambill | January 23, 2007 04:24 PM