Have you ever wondered how landscape photographers create those surreal and misty scenes? The following tip will help you create a little mystery in your landscape photographs.
Step 1
Open your image in Photoshop.
It can be a little tricky to create a realistic mist, but you’ll surely improve your skills over time. In the best case scenario, you should photograph a landscape that is already misty and simply enhance the mist.
Step 2
Go to the Window menu and select Brushes. Under Special Effects Brushes, select Spatter 14 (please note that your brushes may be named differently, so just select the 3rd spatter brush).
At the top of the dialogue box, set the diameter of your brush. For this example, I have set it to 80px.
Step 3
Click on Brush Settings and edit the Spacing at the bottom of the dialog box. A higher setting will give a more dispersed brush effect.
For this example, we want to create a thicker mist, so I have set the Spacing to 5%.
Step 4
Create a new layer by clicking on the Create New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers panel.
You can then paint your mist onto this layer non-destructively, saving the background layer beneath it.
Step 5
Start to paint onto the new layer with your Spatter tool. You dont want to over-do it as your mist needs to look subtle and realistic.
Step 6
To blur your mist, go to the Filter menu > Blur > Gaussion Blur. Drag the slider at the bottom of the dialog box towards the right to increase the blur. For this example, I have taken the slider to 80px.
Step 7
For the final touch, go to the Image menu and select Brighness/Contrast. Drag the contrast slider towards the right to increase the contrast in the image, and play around to see what amount works for you and click OK.
