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Photoshop: Add a Realistic Rainbow to Your Photograph 2

The Comet Rainbow Effect

Last week, we looked at creating primary and secondary rainbows in Photoshop, where I covered the basic properties of rainbows and then demonstrated the process of adding a fully contained rainbow to a photograph as shown in the top left image.

This time, we'll make a partial close up rainbow for a little more of a dramatic effect.

The above is a free image, so you can save it, by right-clicking it, and then load it into Photoshop. You can also download the original full-sized image here, but I recommend working with the compact one above for the purpose of following this tutorial since everything will render much more quickly. It's also been made to look a bit stormier.

Create the Basic Rainbow Circle

Last time, we made the shape of the rainbow by applying Polar Coordinates to a bar. We'll try something different this time.

Select the Ellipse Tool as shown to the left. If you are seeing a different shape instead, click on it and hold your mouse button down for a second to call the pop-up menu, and select the Ellipse tool from there.

With the Ellipse tool active, look toward the top of the screen and be sure the Shape layers box is selected, and that the Style value is set to default, as shown below.

Without creating a new layer, proceed to drag out an ellipse, holding SHIFT to make it a perfect circle, right on top of the background. Don't worry about the size of the circle at this point, as it is a vector that we may subsequently resize without causing pixelation. This is what I am now looking at:

Notice the circle has automatically been drawn on new Shape layer, and not on the original image.

This new shape is named "Shape 1" by default. Double-click directly on the text and change it to "Rainbow."

Now we're going to enlarge the circle. Just to be sure the shape path, and not the layer itself, is selected, click once on the background layer, then click again on the Rainbow layer. With the path selected, you will see an outline around the circle.

Hit CTRL+T to enter Free Transform Path mode. Then at the top of the screen, you will see an array of options for manipulating the shape.

Type in the following values.

• X (horizontal position): -250 px
• Y (vertical position): 500 px
• W (width): 1500 px
• H (height): 1500 px

Then hit Enter twice to accept the settings and exit Free Transform Path mode.

If your window is completely whited out, be sure that you entered the X value correctly, which is a negative number, and that you included the "px"s, which tell Photoshop you want your values to be interpreted in pixels and not some other unit of measure.

We should now be looking at something like this:

In your Layers pallet, set the Fill value of the Rainbow layer to 0%, as shown to the right. What this does is it renders the Rainbow layer invisible, while allowing any styling that is applied to the layer to still show. You will get a better understanding of this as soon as we dive into the effects.

Apply the Rainbow Spectrum

Now we'll add a rainbow outline to our invisible circle.

In your Layers pallet, double-click on the shape's thumbnail, i.e. vector mask, which is the one directly to the left of the word "Rainbow," to call up the Layer Style window; clicking the other thumbnail will only bring up the Color Picker, which won't help.

With the Layer Style window loaded, click on Stroke, which can be found at the bottom of the side menu. Then fill in the following 4 values, which are pointed out above.

• Size: 35
• Position: Center
• Fill Type: Gradient
• Style: Shape Burst

Then click in the middle of the gradient bar in the above Stroke options to call up the Gradient Editor, and select the Transparent Rainbow color set as shown below.

This gives you a pretty uniform rainbow, with orange missing. The red and yellow will create the orange. But, having experimented with this color set, I prefer to set my Transparent Gradient up as shown below. Don't worry about ruining the default settings; any changes you make to this gradient will only take effect in this particular instance.

I removed the sky blue color stop, by dragging it off the panel, and really minimized the violet. These settings will produce a result similar to the one shown in the demo picture at the top of this article, which I feel is the most realistic, with the dominant red, yellow, and blue Superman colors.

Click OKs all the way out of the Layer Style window, and you should end up with something like the below image. Now you're able to realize why we set the Fill value to 0%. If we set the Opacity value to 0%, the rainbow outline would be invisible as well as the inner circle. This is what I meant earlier when I said setting the Fill value to 0% renders the layer invisible while allowing any styling to still show.

If you're seeing a black line running through the center of your rainbow outline, as I do in mine, don't be alarmed. That's just the circle outline from before, which is a guide and not a part of the actual image. Also, if you haven't already done so, now is the time to move the rainbow to a position that you're happy with.

Press CTRL+J to duplicate this Rainbow layer, and rename it to "Interior." We're going to use this later to brighten the sky contained inside the rainbow circle, as is the case with most rainbows. Click the little eye icon to the left of the Interior layer to hide it, shown to the right, as we won't be needing it at the moment.

Add Realism to the Rainbow

Create a new layer, shortcut key combination CTRL+SHIFT+N, and name it "Rainbow" as well. Then, with the new Rainbow layer selected, link it to the original Rainbow layer by clicking the little blank square to the left of the original Rainbow layer's thumbnail, as shown below.

This link will allow us to merge the two layers together without having to place them right next to each other in the Layers pallet. Press CTRL+E to merge both Rainbow layers into one Rainbow layer.

We're doing this because we need to apply certain effects to the rainbow outline now, which will not be possible with the outline still being recognized as a Layer Style. By merging a blank layer onto the original styled layer, we're devectorizing and flattening the original styled rainbow layer. This lets us work directly on the pixel values of the rainbow.

Now set the Rainbow layer's mode to Screen, as shown to the right. You should see a major difference in the appearance of the rainbow after doing this.

Then go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur, enter a value of about 8, and hit OK.

The rainbow at this point is starting to shape up!

Set the opacity of the rainbow to about 70% to 80%, as shown to the right.

The Rainbow's Interior Sky

Now it's the Interior layer's turn. Click on it to make it visible again, and then double-click the vector mask's, i.e. the 2nd, thumbnail to enter the Layer Style again. Tick off Stroke, and click Inner Glow near the top of the side menu.

Use the following settings.

Again, go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur, click OK to the dialog asking to rasterize the layer, and use a radius of about 8. Then set the opacity of the Interior layer to about 30%.

This is what I have so far.

Mask the Rainbow

All that's left to be done is to make the rainbow disappear behind the hill.

Create a new layer set, then drag the Rainbow and Interior layers into it, as shown to the right.

With the layer set selected, click the Add layer mask button, as shown below. Notice a blank white thumbnail has been attached to the layer set. This will allow us to hide the contents of the layer set nondestructively by painting on the mask with black.

Click on the mask thumbnail to be sure it's active, and with a medium-sized soft brush, foreground color set to black, paint over all the ground. The contents of the Rainbow and Interior layers will disappear wherever you paint on the containing set's mask with black.

If you make a mistake, you can reveal any area again by painting on the mask with white. You may even smudge black and white together on the mask, or use a gradient, to create grades of erasure.

Finishing Up

Keep in mind the Rainbow and Interior layers are still giant circles. If you'd like to keep your file size to a minimum, you can Select All (CTRL+A) and then go to Image > Crop. This will permanently delete anything that doesn't appear in the viewport; you'll want to flatten your Interior layer before doing it, or else the Inner Glow will react undesirably.

And that's about it. We have a finished rainbow.

Continue Reading:

• Add a Realistic Rainbow to Your Photograph 1
• Colorize a Black & White Photograph Image
• Smooth (Long-Exposure) Waterfall Effect
• Put a Realistic Camouflage Pattern on Textured Cloth
• Graphic Menus w/ Flickerless Image Swapping

Also See:

Categories: Photoshop

Tags: photograph . rainbow . realistic