Make A Rainbow

1. Open the picture titled L&C_lake2sm.jpg in PSP 8, or use a picture of your own. I do recommend you use a picture that is slightly overcast, as rainbows require RAIN to appear. However, if you're going for a fantasy look, it won't really matter.

2. Duplicate the picture. (Shift-d) Crop this picture lengthwise along the clouds, with enough width to show off your rainbow. (See below) Make it larger than you think you'll need. You can always resize it later.

3. In the Materials window, drop the selection box down and choose "gradient".

4. Choose the rainbow gradient. Personally, I used the bright rainbow, not the pastel. This way, I could "mess" with things when I was finished, as you'll see.

5. Flood fill the cropped picture with the gradient.

6. Right click and copy the cropped picture, then paste it into the original image as a new layer.

7. This is the tricky part - bending the rainbow. I have found two ways to bend the rainbow into an arch, it just depends on what kind of rainbow you'd like to have.

A: This is the easy way, with less control.

1. Click: Effects - Distortion Effects - Warp

2. Horizontal: 10 - Vertical: 60 - Size: 100 - Strength 50  Please note that these settings may not work on YOUR picture. Adjust them accordingly to match your needs, or try option B to bend the rainbow. 

Another thing that might come into play is WHERE your rainbow was to begin with. If it was in the center, it might have a different arch than if you moved it up a little or down a little in the photograph. My best suggestion is to make the arch and try to work with it.

You'll notice right off that the rainbow isn't really as "bent" as you may like to have it. This is the bad part of using this bend technique. On the other hand, rainbows are very rarely perfect, and you may need a little distortion for distance anyhow.

At this point, we're going to explore the second method of rainbow bending, and come back to 'tweaking' at then end.

B: This is the harder way, with more control.

1 . Click and hold the "deformation" tool. Change to "mesh warp" tool.

2. You'll now see a grid appear on your picture. This grid applies only to the current layer, in this case, the rainbow. It's currently at 4x4. Change the grid to 2x1.

3. Take a close look at the grid and you'll see little boxes on the junctures. These are what makes the picture move.

4. Shove that little box upward, and you'll see the rainbow move. Be careful! If you move it to the left or right, you'll warp the rainbow to one side. It's going to take some time, but create a passable rainbow by moving the boxes.

When you're done, click the check mark to apply the warp to the picture. The "x" will restore the rainbow to it's original position (or the last change you made).

Click on the 'mover' tool to remove the grid for a while.

 

8. TWEAKING

Obviously, we've come to the personal preference part of the tutorial. 

Move the rainbow around in the picture until it's where you want it. 

Change the size and shape of the arch by using the "enlarge" feature. This helps blur the actual edges and gives it a little softer look.

Erase the edges that should be "behind" trees and scenery. Remember that rainbows are in front of scenery, too. You can use the opacity bar on your layer palette to make the rainbow slightly disappear to help erase and keep what you need.

Once you have it where you like, you can also adjust the Blend Mode. The simple way to do this is to move the bar at the bottom of the layer window over so you can see the blend mode (default set is "normal"). Make sure you can see the black arrow after the word normal.

Click the arrow and a long menu of choices appears. Start trying them and see what they do. You'll notice each blend modes changes the way the picture looks. Again, you can use the opacity bar to lighten what you see, or darken what you see.

If you don't understand how to do the layer adjustments the way I've described, you can also do them all by double clicking on the layer, or by choose "layer" and "properties". You'll see "opacity" and "blend mode" listed right there, too.

You can also soften the rainbow, adjust brightness and contrast, and add a second rainbow for a reflection effect in the water. It's all a matter of taste at this point.

And that's all there is to making a rainbow. Hope you enjoy the tutorial! Feel free to ask questions and to show off what you made by emailing me!

Need to ask a question? Have a suggestion or just get confused?

Email me.

 

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