Here’s a quick Photoshop tutorial showing you how to enhance haze or fog in your photographs. Fog is great for adding depth to your photographs.
Start with a photograph well suited for fog. This shot, taken in The Grand Teton National Park, was taken in the early hours of the morning before the sun had come up. The view in real life was full of a morning mist. Unfortunately, my camera didn’t capture that well. For whatever reason fog does not expose well on a camera’s sensor. It almost always requires some touch up.
First, activate your brush tool by pressing the ‘B’ key on your keyboard. Select the ‘Brush Preset picker’ highlighted in the photo below. Next select a preset brush similar to the one noted below.
Next, set your foreground color to white or an off white. Create a new layer. You can do this in the layers window or on your menu bar, Layer > New > Layer. Apply the brush to the area you want to enhance or add fog to in your photo. Remember that fog usually sits just above the ground.
Now go to your menu bar and click Filter > Blue > Gaussian Blur. The radius needs to be set relatively high depending on the size of your photograph.
Next, duplicate the gaussian blurred brush layer you were just working on.
Now turn off the layer visibility on the newly duplicated layer. Go back to the gaussian blurred brush layer and change the layer blending mode to overlay. I also changed the opacity to 50%. The overlay blending mode gives the grass a dew-like look.
Next, I’m going to toggle back on the duplicated layer to bring mist back on top of the dew. I kept the blending mode to normal and changed the opacity to 90%.
And that’s it. Play around with different opacities, colors, blending modes until you find something you like. Most importantly, just have fun!
