Animated Rain

Create your own animated rain using Adobe Photoshop.

Corey Barker is Executive Producer of PlanetPhotoshop.com and is an Education and Curriculum Developer for the National Association of Photoshop Professionals. Corey has also made numerous appearances on the highly rated podcast, PhotoshopUser TV, and is co-host of Layers TV.

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50 Comments

Dima said on — March 28, 2008 @ 4:17 am

AMAZINGGGG! hehehe =]
dbenn said on — March 28, 2008 @ 2:19 pm

cool x 10. and great new look.
Tom said on — March 29, 2008 @ 3:09 am

Awesome but at the start I have a PC and how do i bring up the fill dialogue?

Thanks
Mirco said on — March 29, 2008 @ 10:18 am

yeah it’d really be nice of you if u could tell us again how to make the fill dialogue show up

nice work
thnx
Mark Patten said on — March 29, 2008 @ 12:07 pm

Another one I will play with. Thanks Cory.
Elizabeth said on — March 29, 2008 @ 1:34 pm

Wow, Coooooooooooooooooool. Oh, thank you teacher. Wow, I did it.
Corey Barker said on — March 29, 2008 @ 3:00 pm

The keystroke on a PC is Shift-Backspace
blake said on — March 29, 2008 @ 11:33 pm

very cool. i only have photoshop 7.0 though so there isn’t an animation window. just curious if anyone can help me out as to whether i need to pay for an upgrade or whatever.
thanks,
blake
Lynn Cartwright said on — March 31, 2008 @ 12:31 pm

These tutorials are wonderful… if only I could see them better?

Eyes being as they are, mine have gotten worse over the years, so it would be great to be able to download videos to view on a 3rd party on Zoom Player where they can be wound backward to play over those parts that went too fast and enlarged for the visually impaired. Hope Cory will see this and take it into consideration for those of us who love watching but can’t quite make out some of what is going on in the video (such as tools, settings, or menus used).

Love all the guys I’ve seen on PhotoshopTV, Matt, Cory, RC, Scott, & Dave with their many high end professional friends in the field. What they are doing to help everyone is nothing short of fantastic.
P. M. HERMAN said on — March 31, 2008 @ 2:35 pm

Ditto the remarks of Lynn Cartwright. Is there any way to receive a step by step written tutorial?
Brian Richards said on — March 31, 2008 @ 10:29 pm

The Fill Dialogue is behind Edit > Fill, or you can press Shift + F5

As for animation in PS7, this specific animation technique can only be done with CS3. You should definitely make the upgrade, regardless of what you do with Photoshop. It is *well* worth the money!
spepe said on — April 3, 2008 @ 11:12 am

Hi all!

This is awesome! I can’t even find the correct words to describe it! Fantastic!
Thanks for the tutorial!

It was like if were sitting near you. You have answered nearly all of my questions jut when I thought about them.

By the way sorry for my English!

Bye!
Angela said on — April 5, 2008 @ 9:01 pm

cool, can you draw something on that too?
Cathy T said on — April 7, 2008 @ 6:18 am

What is the best way to save the file so the animation works good when you post it on the web? The way I saved it the animation only works once in a while.
NPM said on — April 7, 2008 @ 4:20 pm

loop it forever or change the options to play as many times as you like. Great tutorial, there’s so many fun things you can do!
Naxri said on — April 10, 2008 @ 1:24 am

Can you show how to make a potrait stencil using cs3. Tq.
khalid4ever said on — April 11, 2008 @ 7:34 am

Great Tutorial
keep the good work
tnx
Linda said on — April 21, 2008 @ 9:37 am

Do you have to have the premium version of CS3? I have the standard version of CS3 and the animation window isn’t like the one in the tutorial.
Corey Barker said on — April 23, 2008 @ 2:33 pm

Yes, these animation features are only available in Photoshop Extended.
lee said on — May 12, 2008 @ 10:19 am

nice tutorial , i did find the video a little small but its nicely narrated , when i save it as a gif though it looses its animation, anyone know what im doing wrong?
Márcio Guerra said on — May 17, 2008 @ 3:23 pm

Nice one, again, Corey!

A gif probably will loose the animation, try it in a .swf or .mov file…

Good Luck and thanks.

Márcio Guerra
Steph said on — May 27, 2008 @ 9:50 am

Great tutorial – very helpful and a good alternative to other rain options.

I find that when I save the image the speed it plays at is much slower than in Photoshop – how can we adjust the timing?

Thank you!
Joseph Caruana said on — June 9, 2008 @ 9:08 am

Dear Corey,
thanks for the great tutorials, especailly the ones like animating rain. Unfortunately since my CS3 is not the extended version I got mixed up when I came to make the aniamtion and failed miserably. Can you enlighten me please?

Joseph
Chris Winter said on — June 10, 2008 @ 9:25 pm

WOW!
You are amazing, your tutorial style is so easy to follow.
Thanks mate!
Dan said on — June 18, 2008 @ 6:10 am

Hey how could you modify this so you can add the rain to an already transparent image? Otherwise you can see the dark boundary box of the layer style.
DDJ said on — July 15, 2008 @ 4:19 am

This was a very well done tutorial. I took it several steps extra and added lightening effects and more realistic rain…check it out on my myspace!
DDJ said on — July 18, 2008 @ 5:29 pm

BTW…wrong info about saving. If you want to save as a .gif select “save for web & devices…”. In there it will not lose the animation plus you can do other custom options.
Alan said on — July 19, 2008 @ 9:38 am

It works fine until the end.
How do you put it onto a website..?
I make signatures for people on games and forums, stuff like that but the rain doesn’t seem to be moving on them..?
My friend said: File, Save for web, .GIF
It doesn’t work…
http://i332.photobucket.com/albums/m351/TheKingAlan/AMsigcopy.jpg
(not the .GIF file)
I need the rain on that to be moving but it says on photobucket “Upload failed for AM-sig4.gif with error: Source file is over the file size limit of”
Alan said on — July 19, 2008 @ 12:27 pm

That doesn’t work for me..
as i go into “save for web & devices…” and it’s on .GIF and stuff but as i put it on forums and things it’s not animated…
Marvin said on — August 11, 2008 @ 9:30 am

Its good have this website. Thanks to you Mr. Corey you are not selfish to share your talent. Keep up a good work.
Joakim said on — October 14, 2008 @ 7:45 pm

Wow very nice picture! I wish I could make such a picture..
But I’m from Sweden and I have photoshop in swedish so I can’t find all things that you’re using. :/
Joakim said on — October 15, 2008 @ 4:35 am

Hi again I’ve been spending long time to make a picture like this but I’m stuck at the animation line. which command do you press to make it like you did? please help me
john lowther said on — October 23, 2008 @ 2:56 am

Great, is it posible to place this little animation into a web page?
Joakim said on — October 25, 2008 @ 10:06 am

Sorry for posting so much.. but how do you save it so it will be a moving picture?

I tried save it as a .gif file but it’s not animated :/
kensei said on — November 12, 2008 @ 11:29 am

fantastic tutorial, i have followed a few tutorials on rain effects, but not animated rain, the end result was awsome, thank alot!!!!
Yawar said on — January 19, 2009 @ 11:23 am

This is great, i just have 1 problem, you see im alright up to the animation part. I have photoshop cs4 on pc and i dont know how to get the timeline thing up anyone help me?

n by the way people who don’t know where the fill dialogue is neither did i bit i found it in the edit menu.
made said on — February 7, 2009 @ 7:56 am

Hey Mr. Corey..
you r R0ck..
Thanks
Qarn said on — March 16, 2009 @ 7:15 am

Hey I just wanted to ask if this could be possible to work on Photoshop CS2.

The animation is totally different and of course.. I got lost and confused

Thanks

Great Video
M D A said on — March 30, 2009 @ 9:35 pm

it’s AMAZINGGGG
but how can i save it on .gif
please help me
hefner said on — March 31, 2009 @ 9:26 pm

good tutorial but somethings wrong…i do everything fine but when im close to the end my hard disc space goes smaller and smaller and i cant save because of not enough space.what am i doing wrong?please answer me
Corey Barker said on — April 1, 2009 @ 12:54 pm

Check your file size first. You may be building the animation on a larger than necessary file. Check you hard disk space. Photoshop uses
your hard disk for scratch space and virtual memory. This can have an effect as well.
Nixer said on — April 4, 2009 @ 6:55 pm

Hi !
I absolutely love this tutorial, but when I need to rotate the rain and turn it to a smart object, the animation won’t repeat, right ?
Is there a possibility to change it that it would somehow ?
Please, help.
Thanks.
darrahnicole said on — April 17, 2009 @ 8:26 pm

corey barker- i want to know how to do a similar thing as well.. but with glitter.. would it be the same way? i am familiar with image ready and used to things with glitter fills but not sure how i would do them with cs3 seeing as there is no image ready. thanks if u can see my email id appreciate it if you’d email me there thanks!
Dante Mireles said on — June 18, 2009 @ 3:51 pm

Amazing, you make everything so easy & absoloutely clear.
kab said on — August 9, 2009 @ 4:17 pm

wooooow amazing!
fuji said on — September 8, 2009 @ 9:14 am

everything goes as smoothly as it’s suposed to be up until when im suposed to hold SHIFT+ClicknDrag the rain to make it move, when i drag it, it all becomes messed up with some parts faster then others and all rectangular when i play it.. dunnoe whats messed up, havent tried on my other computer tho.
Daniel said on — September 8, 2009 @ 6:22 pm

how i make the rain slow?
Joan Leonard said on — September 26, 2009 @ 12:33 pm

going to try the rain tut this weekend best tut ever for rain thanks
Joan Leonard said on — September 28, 2009 @ 12:31 am

make the rain fall over pic was looking good went “save as a gif” and lost animation how do I save as a gif and not lose the animation help!!
Juan Torres said on — November 29, 2009 @ 5:42 am

Amazing Tutorial! Thank you so very much! I’ve been looking for a tut like this, but this one puts out!