There’s something deeply cinematic about rain-soaked streets at night – the glow of lanterns reflected on wet pavement, the quiet drama of a lone figure sheltering under an umbrella. In this tutorial, we’ll recreate that atmosphere entirely in Photoshop.
You’ll learn how to composite multiple stock images into a cohesive night scene, apply rain and water drip brushes with realistic depth, use Black and White adjustment layers to unify your lighting, and add subtle colour grading to tie the whole mood together.
This is an intermediate-level tutorial. You’ll need basic familiarity with layer masks, clipping masks, and the Warp tool. Set aside around 60–90 minutes to complete it from start to finish.
The final result is a dark, atmospheric Japanese street scene — moody, cinematic, and completely built from scratch in Photoshop.
The PSD file of this tutorial is available via the PSD Vault VIP members area.
If you have difficulty with adding the water dripping effect in step 4, check out this video below:
Final Result Preview
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OK Let’s get started!
To complete this tutorial, you will need the following stocks:
Step 1
Create a new document sized 1440px * 800px with black background. Load the “street” stock image into Photoshop, copy and paste the entire image over to our document. Place the image to the position:
Use a soft eraser, fade the following areas of the street, so that only the building on the left is the most visible part of the image:
Apply the following image adjustment to this layer:
Black and White
Use a smoke brush or cloud filter, add some smoke/cloud effect on the bottom of the canvas:
Step 2
Load the model image into Photoshop. Cut out the model and paste it onto the following position:
Apply the following image adjustment layers as clipping masks to this model layer:
Black and White
Layer mask on the above black and white adjustment layer (in red):
Levels
Layer mask on the above levels adjustment layer (in red):
and you will have the following effect:
Step 3
Load the “Lantern” stock image into Photoshop. Cut out the lantern and paste it over to the following position, making it look like it’s hanging on the eve of the building:
Create a new layer under the lantern layer and use a soft red brush, paint at the following position:
This adds a red glow to the lantern:
Repeat the above process, add 1 more lantern to the building:
Step 4
Use the rain brush, paint some rain effect around the canvas, make sure you adjust the brush size, opacity and flow to create depth for the photo:
Use the water drip brush, paint some dripping effect on the edge of the umbrella. Use the “Warp” tool to adjust the drip shape, so it fits with the umbrella:
See below a more detailed dripping effect:
Paint some water dripping effect around the girl’s face:
Step 5
We’re in the home stretch. Load the water drip stock image into Photoshop and select a clean section of drips with a transparent or solid background.
Paste them onto your document and set the blending mode to Screen to drop out the dark background, leaving only the drips visible. Position them along the umbrella edge and the eaves of the building for maximum realism.
Now for the colour grading — this is what pulls the whole scene together:
- Add a Color Balance adjustment layer and push the Shadows toward Cyan and Blue. This gives the scene that cold, wet-night feel.
- Add a Curves adjustment layer and create a subtle S-curve to increase contrast — lift the highlights slightly and pull the shadows down to deepen the blacks.
- Add a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer and reduce the overall Saturation by around 20–30 points. This desaturates the scene just enough to feel overcast and atmospheric without going full black and white.
- Finally, add a Photo Filter adjustment layer using a Cooling Filter (80) at around 15–20% density. This adds a consistent cool blue cast across the whole image, tying all the elements together.
For the lantern glow, create a new layer above everything and use a soft round brush in a warm red-orange (#ff4500) at around 10–15% opacity. Paint gently around each lantern to simulate light spill in the rain. Set this layer to Screen or Overlay and adjust opacity to taste.
That’s it – you should now have a fully realised, cinematic rainy night scene. Click the final result image above to see it at full size.
That’s it for this tutorial! Hope you enjoy it and find it useful.If you have any questions about the steps, please contact me or leave a comment below. I will try my best to answer them.