Atmosphere in images is both important and difficult to attain, particularly when the weather isn't obeying your desires for interesting conditions. Here is a tutorial on how to create your own fog brush for Photoshop and turn a bland image into something more moody.
Fog is one of the most used and desirable conditions in damn near every genre of photography. It of course adds interest to landscapes, whether it's lapping at the peaks of mountains or traversing the lowlands of a valley, but it doesn't just stop there. In many of my commercial product shoots for clients, I will use a smoke machine to add a little atmosphere to the scene. Even if I don't want the image to be smoky — and I rarely do — it adds a far better feel to the overall image and the light behaves in a more pleasing way.
If you are outdoors, however, this can't always be done. I have used smoke bombs before and while they're good, they're also concentrated to one area, at the mercy of the wind, and rarely fill a scene how you want due to your lack of control. Smoke machines suffer a similar fate if you are outside and not enclosed in any way. In these instances — and again, I've been there — post production is your best route.
In this tutorial, Aaron Nace of PHLEARN takes you through how to create your very own fog brush in Photoshop and then transform an image. As you can see with Nace's example, the mood and feel of the image transforms; it can really take an otherwise good but ordinary image to a different level.
