HOW TO PAINT CLOUDS INTO YOUR SCENES

Use Photoshop Elements and our free cloud brushes to enhance your skylines

01 LOAD UP YOUR CLOUD BRUSHES

Open Landscape.jpg into Elements and go into the Expert Mode. Grab the Brush Tool from the Toolbox and click on the brush type in the Tool Options, click the settings icon and choose Load Brushes. Now open up the Cloud Brushes.abr file.

02 CREATE A NEW BLANK LAYER

You’ll want to paint your clouds on a new layer so you’re not working on the original background layer. To do this go up to Layer>new>layer. Then go to Window> Layers to see your Layers panel on the right side of the Elements interface.

03 START PAINTING CLOUDS IN

With your cloud brushes now loaded into Elements you can scroll through them and pick one you like the look of. Hit D followed by X for a white foreground colour, set the Opacity to 100% and resize with [ and ], then brush your clouds onto the sky.

04 REFINE THE BRUSH SETTINGS

If you need to rotate the cloud you can go to the Tool Options at the bottom and click Brush Settings. Then, in the panel that appears, you can drag the angle diagram until the cloud is facing in the right direction that you need.

05 MASK OFF THE HORIZON

You may end up inadvertently painting over the horizon, so you’ll need to tidy it up for realistic results. To do that, click the Add Layer Mask icon in the Layers panel and with a soft-edged black Brush Tool paint over the offending areas.

06 ADD THE FINISHING TOUCHES

Now you can finish the image off by changing the Layer Opacity until it blends in perfectly with your image. You could also try changing the Blending Mode to Screen or Lighten to see if it gives you a more realistic result too.