1. Add Falling Snow
Load up a photo that best suits snowfall (your trip to sunny Spain probably isn’t cut out for this).
Select Layer > New > Layer, and name it “snowfall”. Click on Edit > Fill, and in the dialog box, change Contents to Black. Click OK.
With your screen now doused with darkness, go to Filter > Noise > Add Noise. Set the Amount to 150%; Distribution to Gaussian; check the Monochromatic box. Press OK.
Back to the ribbon, you want to select Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur.
Change the Radius to five. Feel free to experiment and pick your own radius, as the smaller it is, the smaller your snowflakes will be.
Now, go to Image > Adjustments > Threshold. As you move the slider left and right, you can create anything from a light flurry to a furious blizzard. For this how-to, we’ve set the value to 107.
In the Layers panel, highlight the “snowfall” layer, and switch the Blending mode from Normal to Screen. You now have an idea of how the snowfall will look against your image, giving you a chance to alter the threshold level before continuing.
Click Filter > Blur > Motion Blur.
You’ll need to toy with both the Angle and Distance. We’ve opted for an Angle of -35 and a Distance of 20px. Use the preview to estimate what looks best for your photo.
With your “snowfall” image highlighted, press the Layer Mask button in the Layers panel. We’re going to strip away some of the existing snowflakes for better presentation.
To do this, select the Brush Tool from the toolbar, and ensure the colors are set to Black for the foreground and White for the background.
Press the down-arrow for the tool’s options menu. Under General Brushes, choose Soft Round.
Change the Size to around 300 to 400px (but experiment to see what works with your photo), and begin to lightly remove snow from key areas, such as your subjects’ faces. Click, rather than swipe, for a more natural look.
You can then repeat these steps, creating a new layer each time and altering the numeric values of the noise and threshold to add more falling snow.
2. Create a Snow Scene
Time to drop a light dusting of snow to any photo.
First things first, if your image is too bright, click on the New Adjustment Layer button, and choose Hue/Saturation. Drag the Saturation slider downward, washing out the color and giving the image a more wintery feel.
Next, in the Layers panel, switch to Channel.
Toggle the visibility of each channel, so you can only see Red, Green, or Blue at any one time. You’re looking for the channel that shows the most amount of white—in our case, that’s Green.
Hold Ctrl (on Windows) or Cmd (on Mac), then click on the Green channel (or whichever channel you’re using). This auto-selects the areas where it’ll “snow.”
Change back from Channel to Layers, and add a New Layer. Click on Edit > Fill, then choose Color from the dropdown.
In the palette, find a color that’s close to realistic snow. Something just shy of pure white should do it. Then, press Ctrl/Cmd + D to remove the auto-selection.
You should see a dusting of snow across your photo. If you’re not quite happy with the results, start by highlighting the snow layer and adjusting the Opacity.
Finally, to add a little more snow to your image, create a New Layer, and select the Brush Tool.
Adjust the size of the brush, and make sure you’re using the Soft Round option. Paint the snow onto the ground, the roofs of houses, and so on. Tweak the Opacity to create a more natural appearance.
To create the illusion of packed snow, take your Lasso Tool, and select an area of the image. Click on the New Adjustment Layer, selecting Solid Color. Ideally, this will be the same off-white you used elsewhere in the image.
Double-click on this new layer to open the Layer Style window. Go to Bevel & Emboss, then to Texture.
Under Elements, select a Pattern using the dropdown—we’re going to use the third water texture, but you can choose the one that works for you.
Adjust the Scale and Depth sliders until you’re happy with how the snow looks.
Head back to Bevel & Emboss. You want to experiment tweaking Size and Soften, as well as the Highlight and Shadow opacities.
Finally, smooth out any edges of your packed snow using a Soft Round brush and the Smudge Tool. And add falling snowflakes, if you choose.
3. Add Christmas Lights
As any budding Clark Griswold knows, it wouldn’t be Christmas without stringing up some fairy lights around the house.
Open your image, create a new layer, then select the Brush Tool. A nice, soft brush ought to do it, and set the Hardness to zero percent.
Set your Color. In this example, we’ll use yellow as the foreground color and red as the background color.
Click on Brush Tool options (it looks like a folder with a paintbrush inside). Under Brush Tip Shape, set the size of the “lights.” We’re using 80px.
Then, move down to Spacing and adjust this (we’ve opted for 70 percent). There are no set values to use; experiment on the image and undo until you find the perfect look.
Go to the Scattering settings. Uncheck the box marked Both Axes, and set the Scattering to 30 percent (again, different photos will need different values, so play around). But now, you can see the preview has a ragged look more akin to Christmas lights.
Click into Color Dynamics. The only setting to change here is Foreground/Background Jitter. Set this to 100 percent, and check Apply Per Tip. Doing so lets you automatically alternate between your two colors.
Create a New Layer. Now, start painting on your lights. Okay, this isn’t actually the lights—what we’re doing here is creating the glow that comes from the lightbulbs.
Pro-tip: if you’re brushing along straight edges, like a roof, set a start point, then hold Shift and click on the endpoint. Photoshop fills in the line in between.
There are a few ways to add bulbs to the lights, but the easiest way is to head back into Brush Tool options and select a Hard brush.
As before, play with the Size, Hardness, and Spacing. Be sure to adjust the Scattering, too, for a more natural look.
Change the Color, and brush the bulbs on top of the lights. If the bulbs feel too harsh, try tweaking the Hardness or lightly using the Blur Tool to take the edge off.
It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas
Make the holidays come early. By toying with blending modes and brush tools, Photoshop makes it easy to fill your photos with the festive spirit all year round.
