How to Make Fog With Photoshop

By adding fog to your digital photographs, you can create a sense of eeriness, give the illusion of a frigid climate or just add dimension to an otherwise boring backdrop. You can create a realistic fog effect in minutes using Photoshop, Adobe's popular graphic design software. Just select the photo you would like to alter and take advantage of Photoshop's adjustable tools and imaging effects.

Load your selected photograph into Photoshop. You can just drag the photo file onto the Photoshop icon on your desktop, or you can open the program, select "File" from the menu bar and select "Open" from the drop-down menu. Locate your file in the "Browse" window and double-click it.

Create a new layer. In the "Layers" window, click the icon that looks like a sheet of paper. A new layer will appear. If your "Layers" window does not show up, click "Window" in the menu bar and select "Layers" from the list.

Click on the "Brush" tool on your toolbar. It looks like a paint brush.

Set the Brush tool specifications in the "Options" bar just beneath your menu bar. A good combination is a diameter of 150 with the mode set to Dissolve and the hardness set to 0. In addition, choose a 30 percent flow and a 15 percent opacity.

Choose a light gray shade for your brush color. To do so, click the "Foreground Color" box at the bottom of your toolbar and select a light gray swatch from the pop-up window. Your "Foreground Color" box appears directly in front of, and raised slightly above, the "Background Color" box.

Paint horizontal lines across the image, in all of the places where you would like the fog to appear.

Raise the opacity of your brush to about 50 to 60 percent and draw in a few extra brush strokes, creating greater thickness in certain areas for a more realistic look.

Select "Filter" from your menu bar and hover your mouse over the "Blur" option. Choose "Gaussian Blur" from your list of options and adjust the "Radius" until your fog looks just right. Most likely, your best radius will fall between 10px and 20px.