Adding a Rainbow to a Picture with Photoshop part 3

This is part three of my tutorial on Adding a Rainbow to a Picture. Be sure and check out part one

Step 17
You must not choose the Black-to-White Gradient.By pressing the D key you will set your Foreground color to white and the Background color to black. After having done so, press the X key to swap them.

Step 18

Grab the Gradient tool form the Tools palette and select the Gradient Picker. On the top left corner of the Gradient Editor you will see the gradient swatch in the top left corner, and select the Foreground to Background gradient. Now go back to the Options Bar and select the Linear Gradient option.

Step 19

You must now drag a Black-to-White gradient from the base of the rainbow in your picture to the top of the image. You need to do this in order to give your rainbow a more realistic look, as real rainbows tend to get brighter at their top. The way to obtain this with Photoshop is by dragging a black-to-white gradient from the base of the rainbow, the point where it reaches the ground in your picture, to the top of the image.

Step 20

At this point you will also want to cut the rainbow’s base, so that none piece of it which is below it base will appear in the final image. Select the Gradient tool. Now click the mouse somewhere around the point where your rainbow appears to be touching the ground. Hold the Shift key and drag straight up to the top of the picture, After you release the mouse, Photoshop will draw the black-to-white gradient on the layer mask and by doing so, your rainbow will appear to be starting near the bottom of the picture and gain in brightness as it climbs up in the sky.

Step 21

What you have to do now is to duplicate the “Rainbow” layer and increase its intensity. Press Ctrl+J to duplicate the layer. After doing so, you will notice that the rainbow is too intense and you may want to reduce it. Lower the value of the Opacity setting, which you will find in the top right of the Layers palette. Lower the opacity of the duplicate layer to about 60-70%.

Step 22

Now duplicate your “Rainbow” one more time and move it to the right if you want to create a “double rainbow” effect in your picture. Duplicate the layer by proceeding just like in the above step, by pressing the Ctrl+J combination. Now you will have three “Rainbow” layers in the layers palette.

Step 23

Now move your new copy of the “Rainbow” layer to create a double rainbow.Select the “Move” tool which you will find in the Tools palette (or use its shortcut, by pressing the M key). Click anywhere inside the window and drag the copy of the “Rainbow” layer to the left or to the right of the main rainbow to create a second one. In order to be sure you drag the layer perfectly horizontally, hold the Shift key during dragging.

Step 24

Usually, when you see a double rainbow in nature you will see that the second one is not as intense as the first one. To make the second rainbow look more natural, you must apply some blur. Press Ctrl+F to re-apply the Gaussian Blur filter with the same settings as the previous time you had used it. To lower its intensity even further, you may find it necessary to apply it one more time (by pressing again Ctrl+F).

Step 25

If you consider it necessary in order to make some further adjustments to the second rainbow, you can also change its opacity value (you will find this option in the top right of the Layers palette).

Step 26

Now it is time to group the two original rainbow layers if you want the rainbow to appear somewhat behind the elements in your picture (if you, for example have some trees in the image and you want the rainbow to appear behind them). Select one of the two “Rainbow” layers in the Layers palette and then Shift+click on the other one to select them both. After you have both the rainbow layers selected, press Ctrl+G to place them into a group. When you have more layers in a group, you will see a folder appearing in the Layers palette where the layers have previously been.

Step 27

You can add a layer mask to a group. You can do the same way you add one to a layer. Having the group selected, click on the “Add A Layer Mask” icon (which is located on the bottom of the Layers palette) and a layer mask thumbnail will appear to the right of the group’s folder icon.

Step 28

The next step is to paint with black over any part of the rainbow you want hidden. Use the “Brush” tool from the Tools palette (or press B if you prefer working with keyboard shortcuts). Select a soft-edged brush and black still as your foreground color, paint over anything you want the rainbow to be hidden behind. ( if you have some trees in your picture, paint over the trees just to make sure that no part of the rainbow is visible in front of them). Because you paint with black on the layer group’s mask, both of the original rainbow layers inside the group will be hidden from view in any areas you paint over.

Step 29

After you have painted the elements you want to appear in front of your rainbow in the picture, you are finished editing the image.You now have one or two rainbows with a very natural look in the picture. Save the file with the desired name and extension.

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