Photoshop: How to Add Fog That Looks Real to Your Photos

Photoshop makes it easy to add many different effects to your photos. In this tutorial I will show you how to add fog to your photo. This can be done fairly quickly even if you don't have any experience in Photoshop.

Adding Fog to Your Photo in Photoshop

Open your Photoshop program up. You will need to open the photo that you want to add the fog too. Click File > Open, then look on your hard drive for the photo that you want to use. Once you have located the photo click Open to open the file.

You should see a list of panels on the right side of your screen. Look for the Layer panel. If you do not see the panels then click on Window > Layers at the top of your window and that will bring up your Layers panel.

Now you will need to create a New Layer. At the bottom of the Layers panel you will see a little sheet of paper with the corner curled up, click on that icon to create a new layer. You will need to name your new layer. You can name it Fog for example. Double click on the layer to type the name of the layer.

Next you will need to select the Brush Tool. The Brush Tool is the little paint brush looking icon. Click on it to select it. Up at the top of your Photoshop window you will see some option for your brush. Set your options as follows.

Brush - 60 px
Mode - Dissolve
Opacity - 65%

Next you will need to set the Foreground Color to a grey color. I use #dedddd for my grey. The Foreground color is the top square. Once you have selected the color grey that you want to use, you can begin painting. Hold your mouse down over the image where you want the fog to be and scroll your mouse over the image until you have all the areas shaded grey that you want to be foggy.

Now you will need to click on the Fog Layer in your layer panel to highlight it. Just click it one time. Now go to the top of your Photoshop window and click on Filter > Blur > Guassian Blur. The Guassian Blur panel will pop up. In this panel you will need to set the Radius to 18%. Then click OK.

Click on your Fog Layer again in your Layer panel to highlight it. Next you will need to click on the Add Layer Mask icon at the bottom of your Layer Panel. It is the little square with the circle in the middle of it.

Next, select the Gradient Tool in your Tools Panel. It is the little square that fades from gray to black. Now drag the Gradient Tool across your picture to make the fog fade the way you want it. If you don't like the way you applied the Gradient simply click Edit > Undo.

If you do not want to fade the fog then you can stop after you apply the Guassin Blur.

If you have any problems with this tutorial, please feel free to contact me using the contact button at the top of this page.