Three Simple Uses For The ‘Clouds’ Filter in Photoshop

The “clouds” filter (Filter > Render > Clouds) does just about what you would suspect. Using both the foreground and background color, it creates a misty/cloudy fill. This simple filter can be used for all kind of interesting things, especially when combined with other filters, layer effects, and layer modes.

Here are three simple uses:

Brushed Steel

With the default black/white colors selected, render your clouds.

Filter > Noise > Add Noise (about 5% should do).

Filter > Blur > Motion Blur (about 50% larger than the width of your document seems to work best)

You can play with the starting colors and the values for different effects.

Antique / Grunge Look

Open a photo.

Create a new layer above and render clouds using a sepia/sanguine style color combination.

Change the layer style of the clouds layer to “Multiply”, and adjust the opacity down to a comfortable level.

Camouflage

Fill with black/white clouds. It’s best to start high contrast here and adjust the colors later.

Filter > Artistic > Cutout. Up the number of levels and lower the simplicity until it looks right to you.

Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation. Make sure “colorize” is checked, then adjust the sliders to get the color/look you want.

Anyone have any other stuff they use the clouds filter for?