Foggy Window Effect in Photoshop

Foggy Window Effect in Photoshop





After over three days of nonstop rain I decided to use that as
inspiration for a new experiment in Photoshop. In 2007 I did a video
tutorial showing how to create water drops in Photoshop, but it was only
the video without any text instruction, so a lot of people have sent
emails asking us to put a text version of the tutorial. I always thought
that simply repeating the same tutorial wouldn't be cool so I tried to
make a new effect and apply the water drops on it as well.


So in this tutorial I will show you how to create a foggy window
effect in Photoshop. We will use a stock photo, brushes, and layer
styles to create the effect. The whole process is quite simple and it
won't take you more than 30 minutes to achieve the same result.

Step 1


Open Photoshop and create a new document. I'm using 2560x1440 pixels
for the document size. After that I filled tha background layer with a
dark grey. This part will be necessary to create the water drops.





Step 2


Go to Window>Brushes to create the brush for the
water drops. Follow the image below for the settings but it's important
to change the shape to an ellipse and also for this first part the brush
has to be very soft.





Step 3


Add a new layer and group this layer into a folder. Then change the Blend Mode of the folder to Color Dodge. With the Brush Tool (B)
and white for the color, paint with the Brush Tool some drops. As you
can see the blurry edges of the little objects sort of melt with one
another depending how close they are. That is really important to make
the drops more realistic.





Step 4


Select the background layer and the group with the drops and merge them into on layer. After that go to Image>Adjustments>Levels. Change the Black Input to 124 and the White to 161. The values might vary depending on the drops, so just make sure that you get rid of the blurry edges.





Step 5


With the Magic Wand Tool (W) select the black area, then go to Select>Similar to make sure all the black areas get selected. Then delete this area.





Step 6


Import an image to use in our design. The one I'm using is courtesy from Thinkstock and you can find it here. Duplicate this layer because we will use it a few more times with different blur values.





Step 7


Go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur. Use 20 pixels for the Radius.





Step 8


Go to Layer>Layer Styles>Color Overlay. Use a dark grey for the color and change the Opacity to 60%.





Step 9


Now put the water drops in front of the image and let's apply some layer styles to give them the realistic effect we want.





Step 10


Go to Layer>Layer Styles>Blending Options and change the Fill Opacity to 0. After that select Inner Shadow. Use white for the color and LInear Dodge for the Blend Mode, for the Opacity use 50%, for the angle 90º, then for the Distance use 3 pixels and for the Size use 5 pixels. Also change the Contour mode to the Cone one.





Step 11


Select Bevel and Emboss. Change the Depth to 350%, the Direction
to Down, the Size to 7 pixels, the Soften to 5 pixels, then over the
Shading options use 54º for the Angle and 42º for the Altitude. Also change the Gloss
Contour to the Cove Deep one, the for the Highlight Mode use 80% with
white and Color Dodge for the Blend Mode, then for the Shadow Mode use
Multiply with black and 50% of Opacity.





Step 12


Select Inner Glow then for the Blend Mode use Darken with 40% Oapcity and black for the color. Change the Source to Edge and the Size to 25 pixels.





Step 13


Now select Color Overlay and use (#907f72) for the color with Color Dodge with 45% Opacity.





Step 14


The last layer style option will be Drop Shadow. Use Multiply for the Blend Mode, black for the Color and 20% Opacity. Change the Angle to 90º and use 9 pixels for the Distance, 5% for the Spread and 10 pixels for the Size.





Step 15


Make the photo without blur visible again and go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur. Use 5 pixels
this time. Then over the Layer Palette click with the right button of
the mouse on the thumb of the water drops layer, then select "Select Pixel" to select just the water drops.

Select the photo that we applied the 5 pixles Gaussian Blur and go to Layer>Layer Mask>Reveal Selection. This way the image with 5 pixels blur will be only visible beneath the water drops.





Step 16


Select the layer mask that we created in the previous step and go to Filter>Blur>Motion Blur. Use -90º for the Angle and 80 pixels for the Distance.





Step 18


After the motion blur, go to Image>Adjustments>Levels.
Change the black and white inputs again to get rid of the blurry edges
caused by the blur. You will have an effect like the image below as if
the water drops were running down on the window.





Step 19


Duplicate the layer with the photo that we applied the Gaussian Blur with 5 pixels for the radius only and delete the layer mask. The with the Horizontal Type Tool (T) add
a text with a handwriting font, or if you have a tablet or is really
good with the mouse you can write with your own handwriting. Again
select just the pixels of the text like we did in the Step 15. Then mask this new photo with the shape of the text, so again the photo will be visible only beneath the text area.





Step 20


Add a new layer and with the Brush Tool (B) and the
same brush we created the water drops, add more water drops and
especially over the text area like the image below. To apply the same
layer style of the water drops, just click with the right button of the
mouse over the water drops layer and select Copy Layer Style, then on the new layer with the small water drops click again with the right click of the mouse and select Paste Layer Style.





Step 21


Duplicate the photo again and delete the layer mask, after that go to Layer>Layer Mask>Hide All. Select the thumb of the layer mask and go to Filter>Render>Clouds.
Make sure you had black and white for the colors. This will apply a
cloud texture to the foggy window effect, that will make it more
realistic.





Step 22


Select all layers and duplicate them, after that merge all the
duplicated layers into one. You can also use the keyboard shortcut Command+Alt+Shift+E. Then go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur. Use 20 pixels for the Radius.





Step 23


Change the Blend Mode of this blurry layer to Overlay with 40% opacity.





Step 24


Duplicate the previous layer and just change the Blend Mode to Screen, keep the same 40% of Opacity.





Step 25


Add a new layer on top of the others and fill it with a radial
gradient using dark grey and light grey for the colors. Also use
Multiply for the Blend Mode.





Conclusion


Here is the outcome of the tutorial. As you can see the technique
used is pretty simple it was all about Layer Styles, Masks and basic
filters. The most important thing was to understand how to recreate the
effect using the tools available in Photoshop, in this case I spend
hours analyzing a foggy window trying to get the basic characteristics
to make the effect realistic. Now it's up to you.



Click on the image for full preview


Download the Photoshop File


Click here to Download the Photoshop file used for this tutorial.


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http://abduzeedo.com/foggy-window-effect-photoshop