Here's a short, quickie, that most of you will know by now -- but for beginners, or those who haven't tried animating in Photoshop, it will be a breeze. We like these clear, easy-to-follow, tutorials -- and thank Dr. Smith for sending this one in. It's perfect for this issue ... April showers bring May flowers ...

Invite Rain:

STEP 1 :

Open your image and create a new layer and place the new layer over the image layer in the layer palette

Choose paint bucket tool and fill the new layer with black -- or, tap 'D' to set your colors to the default black over white, and then alt/delete. (Option/delete for Mac users.)

Then choose filter > noise > add noise
and adjust settings as shown below left.

Now, choose
filters > blur > motion blur
and adjust settings as shown above, right.

STEP 2:

Create a new layer and place it over the other layers in the layer palette and fill it with black as we do before in the previous layer.

Also apply the add noise filter but increase the amount to "61" instead of "60" and then apply the motion blur filter with the same previous settings.

Try this step 2 times but when you apply the noise filter you must increase "1" to the amount (i.e. the 3rd layer "62" and the 4th "63", and so forth.)

Now change the mode of all 4 layers to screen and then change the fill of all layers to 60.

You should see the image look like that shown at the far right.

STEP 3:

Select file >> Edit in ImageReady, or simply click the ImageReady icon at the foot of the tool box.

In the imageready show the animation palette and layers palette if they are invisible. To do that : choose Window > Timeline Window > Layers.

In the animation window at the first frame go to the layer palette and make all layers invisible except the basic image layer and one layer. (Above left.)

Next, you'll that create a new frame in the timeline. by clicking the "Duplicate current frame" button which I've surrounded by a circle in the screen above right.

Select the new frame and go to the layer palette and hide the already visible layer and make another one visible. as you see in this image.

Repeat this process until you have 4 frames each one contains the basic image layer with only one rain layer.

After that set the time of the frames to 0.1 second

Select file >> Save optimized as and give it a name.

You're done, and the Final result is shown at left. You should always select a photo that is contrasty, with a lot of medium and dark areas so the rain actually shows up.

Regards
      Dr Smith

Special thanks to Dr. Smith for sending in this tutorial. The Doctor practices his magic over at the UrLearn.com web site.

Remember: ... we encourage you to share your discoveries with other readers. Just send and email, contribute your own article, join the Design Cafe forums, or follow DTG on Facebook!

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Don't forget ... we encourage you to share your discoveries with other readers. Just send and email, contribute your own article, join the Design Cafe forums, or follow DTG on Facebook!