Hi. This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV. Fog and mist are two of the most ethereal
forms of nature. When you see fog, you’ll notice that the further back the scenery is,
the lighter they are and less color they have. And in heavy fog, the scenery gradually disappears
in a sea of hazy light grey or white. You’ll also notice that mist tends to cling to the
ground in thick, feathery patches. I created this one from this photo and will show you
how I did it. Open a photo you'd like to use. I downloaded this one from Shutterstock.com.
It's best to use a photo was shot from a perspective no higher than the height a person. Remember,
every photo has its own spatial references such the distance of objects or people from
the camera. Whatever photo you use, you can still apply the same techniques that I'll
be showing you in this example. Click the Adjustment layer icon and click "Hue/Saturation".
Slide the Saturation all the way to the left and the Lightness all the way to the right.
Your image should look completely white. Open your Gradient Tool and open your thumbnail
presets. Click the Black to White thumbnail and make sure the Linear Gradient is highlighted.
Go to the bottom of your document and press and hold Shift as you drag the gradient line
to the top. Then, release. This lightened and desaturated your photo the further up
it goes. Next, we'll replace back some of the brightness and color of objects in the
foreground. Remember, the closer the objects are, they'll look less enveloped by the fog.
Click off the eyeball next to the adjustment layer to hide the layer and click the thumbnail
of your photo to make it active. In this photo, the trees on the left are the closest, so
I want to restore some of their brightness and color once we add the fog back. To do
this, I'll open my Quick Selection Tool with a size of 20 pixels. I’ll drag my mouse
or pen over the trees in the foreground
and go to Select and Refine Edge.
I covered “Refine Edge” in depth in some of tutorials, so I won’t be over all of the features here.
Check "Smart Radius". Drag the Radius slider a little to the right. Now, drag over the
edge of the mask. When you release your cursor, you'll notice that the mask now includes a
lot more detail.
Output it as a Selection and click OK.
Make the Adjustment layer visible
and its layer mask active. Zoom out of your document by pressing Ctrl or Cmd and the minus
key on your keyboard a few times.
Open your Brush Tool. We'll adjust the Size in a second.
Make the Hardness 0% and the Opacity 50%. To increase the size of the brush, press the
right bracket key until it's bigger than the selection. Then, brush once over the selection.
To fit it back onto your canvas, press Ctrl or Cmd + 0. To reduce the size of your brush,
press the left bracket key.
Let's hide the selection, so we can see the tree better.
Press Ctrl or Cmd + H. Now, I'll carefully brush over the branches of the tree that's the
nearest to us. To delete the hidden selection, press Ctrl or Cmd + D.
I'll reduce the brush's opacity to approximately 15%,
adjust the brush size and brush over the tree that's
the next closest.
Next, we'll add some mist hovering over the grass.
Click the New Layer icon to make a new layer.
Make sure your foreground and background colors are black and white,
respectively. If they aren't, press "D" on your keyboard. Go to Filter, Render and Clouds.
Change its Blend Mode to "Lighten".
Open your Transform Tool by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + T.
At the top, you'll see the Width and the Height. These are the Horizontal and Vertical scales
of the Transform. Change the Width to 400% and the Height to 60%.
Drag the transform down to the ground level.
Then, press Enter or Return.
Make a copy of it by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + J.
Hide the copy and make the original active.
Open your Eraser Tool.
Make the Size: 150 pixels,
the Hardness: 0 and the Opacity: 100%.
Now, brush across the top of the mist to erase it.
Reduce its opacity to 50%.
Make the copy visible and active.
Open your Transform Tool
and click the chain-link icon. This links the Width and the Height.
In either them, type in 200.
Then, press Enter or Return.
Increase the size of the Eraser
and brush across the top of the mist.
Reduce its opacity to approximately 50%.
Then, drag the mist to a location you like.
This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV.
Thanks for watching!