Help with realistic looking clouds?

I'm thinking this belongs in 'advanced', as it isn't really a basic question persay...if I'm wrong I apologize.

But I need serious help with making realistic looking clouds. I've tried using all the techniques/ideas I had, and still can't figure it out. Does anyone have any tips and/or tutorials? :/ Greatly appreciated.

i always just use real clouds from photographs and move them into my picture- usually it takes very little hassle- and there is lots of them for free at www.sxc.hu

If you just throw a picture of some clouds over a sky background, put your blending mode on the cloud layer to luminosity, then add a layer mask and use a soft brush to take out unwanted stuff, usually it works pretty good- especially if you use a few pictures of clouds and use them all on different layers- and try some other blending options.

for added effect, duplicate your cloud layer and put the blending mode to normal for a sec- change it's hue/saturation and click "clorize" and try to make the color match the sun or moon hue if there is one in the picture (this is to add a sunset look). Change that layer's blending mode to colorize, then put a layer mask over it, and add a black to clear gradient to the mask so that the color only is coming from the light source- you can do this a couple times with different colors like pink and purple for a cool sunset.

It may work best to bringdown the opacity on the coloriing layer too, just so it blends better with the lower layer.

just some ideas.

-eef

http://www.optidigit.com/stevens/cloudtut.html

- Try that. The technique is easy, but good results are kinda hard/time comsuming to get...though its worth a shot even if just for practice.

Try making a cloud brush. And then painting clouds. eh? I'm a big fan of brushes, sorry.

Eef: Thanks! Might be a nice way to get into the technique.

Rodder: Hmm, I tried this one once. My clouds didn't quite look like theres...but since it's been reccomended to me twice I'll keep trying with it.

Human#6billion: :P Fun idea. Just gotta learn how to shade it then.

Thanks all! I'll take all these ideas into consideration...and test them. ^^

For shading, use the burn tool.

use a brush tool with wihte color thin use some blue * 20 * to edges and some black *15 * to middle cloud
hard lock

Starstricken.....

render dark clouds on 1 layer
render light clouds on 1 layer

open the layer styles an use the enormously powerful blending sliders...

Good luck.

Thanks ^^ I'll try all of this. Expect to see a few more clouds soon.