- [Instructor] In this movie I'll show you how to
enhance your big, juicy snowflakes, and it's really just
a matter of building on what we have so far.
And so the fact that this snow layer is a smart object,
means that we can change its size,
and we can change the filter settings,
without harming a single pixel,
and so I'm gonna jump a copy of this layer
just by pressing control J, or command J on the Mac,
which basically emphasizes the snowflakes
that we have so far.
Instead I wanna make these guys way bigger,
by returning to the edit menu and choosing
the free transform command.
And at which point you may see this alert message
that's telling you that motion blur
and median will be turned off, as you scale this layer,
which is just fine, really actually doesn't matter at all.
And now notice that both the width and height values
are 500%, so Photoshop remembers the transformation,
and that's because you're working with
an indestructible smart object.
Go ahead and link those two values together
and then increase either the width or height value
to a thousand pixels and press the enter key
or the return key on the Mac a couple of times
to apply that change.
And now we end up with bigger, chunkier flakes of snow.
Which means that we need to round off those flakes
more aggressively, and so I'll double click
on the word median, associated with this top snow layer.
Again I'm gonna see that alert message,
this time telling me that the motion blur filter
is gonna be turned off, and because we doubled the size
of our snowflakes, we need to double
the radius value as well, so I'll take it up to 14 pixels
and then click okay.
A moment later that change will be applied,
and now I'm going to double click on the motion blur,
and the reason I'm doing this is I wanna change the angle
from negative 60 degrees, which is the same as 120 degrees,
as I entered in the previous movie.
I'm gonna change it to however 70 degrees,
just for the sake of variety, you can go with
any value you like.
And you could increase the distance value as well,
but I'm gonna leave it alone and then just click okay.
Alright now the important thing to note here is that
your flakes and my flakes are gonna look different.
And that's because that original mezzotint filter is random,
and so notice that my current snowflakes,
and the ones that I applied in the final composition,
look different than each other.
Another thing to note is that this layer is huge,
it's way bigger than the image,
and so if you don't quite like the way
that the snowflakes are arranged,
then you can switch to the move tool,
and then just drag that layer around to a different location
until you get what you like.
Alright now by this point we've created a pretty aggressive
snowstorm, and it's really covering up her face,
I wanna mask some of that away by dropping down
to the add layer mask icon, at the bottom
of the layers panel and clicking on it.
And then, I'll go ahead and grab my brush tool,
which of course you can get by pressing the P key.
You want the foreground color to be black
so I'll just go ahead and press the X key to make it so,
and then I'll right-click in the image window
and this time around I want the hardness value to be 0%,
and then I'll press the enter key,
or the return key on the Mac in order to hide that panel,
and I'll go ahead and increase the size of my brush
and click right about there, and then reduce the size
of my brush and click here, so that I'm basically
protecting her face, while letting the snow continue
to rain down on her hood and her hands,
and her scarf and so forth.
Now the reason that we're still seeing snowflakes
on her face is because of this lower snow layer right here,
so notice if I were to turn it off
her face is indeed protected.
And so what I'm gonna do is copy this layer mask,
from one snow layer onto the other,
by pressing and holding the Alt key,
or the option key on the Mac, and then dragging
the layer mask like so, and notice because I have the Alt
or option key down, I'm seeing a double arrowhead cursor,
at which point when I release, I protect her face
on that layer too.
Now I don't wanna protect it so much
on the little snow layer, so I'll go ahead
and select that layer mask and double click on it
to bring up the properties panel, if that doesn't work
for you, then go to the window menu
and choose the properties command.
And then I'm just gonna take down that density value,
and that's gonna make that formerly black blob
a kind of medium shade of gray,
which will let some of the snow show through.
And so I went with a density value of 50%,
you of course can go with anything you like.
And that is how you enhance your
big, juicy, synthetic snowflakes, so that you have
a kind of virtual blizzard, here inside Photoshop.