Smooth Fire Text

1) Create a 800*800 new document, I don't care if u just want to make a small image, but the canvas' size at the beginning has to be big enough, way bigger than the image u have in it, got it?

2) Now set the foreground color to white, for the text we're gonna enter. here I entered my CS nick, make sure drag it to the bottom of the canvas about the position in my sample.

3) Create a new layer in the layer window, Layer 1 (Don't tell me if u don't know how to, if so, notice our lower level tutorials in the future). And then press Alt+Shift+Ctrl+E to merge all the visible layer in to Layer 1 (If you only press Shift+Ctrl+E, all visible layers will come up to 1 layer). You'll see the images in the first two layers merged on Layer 1.

4) Now click Edit--->Transform--->Rotate 90 degrees CCW, you have it like this.

5) Select Filter-->Stylize-->Wind, set the Method to Wind, Direction set it From the right, click ok. and then Press Ctrl+F twice, to repeat this filter 2 more times. u should have an image similar to this. Notice, this depends on how large ur images is, the larger ur images is, the more times u repeat the Wind Filter.

6) Select Edit-->Transform-->Rotate 90 degrees CW to transform it to the right position.

7) Select Filter--> Blur--> Gaussian Blur, set the Radius to 3.2 Notice: This also depends on how large ur images is, just don't make it too blury, and not too clear, Refer to the semple here.

9) Now select Image--> Adjustment --> Hue/Saturation (u can use a shotcut by pressing Ctrl+U), Check the Colorize Check box at the right bottom, make sure u do this step, or it will not change at all. then set the Hue to 40, set the Saturation to 100. NOw you have the yellow color of fire

10) Now duplicate the Yellow Fire color layer, see the diagram below.

11) In this step we need to change the blending mode of the layer which is handling the RED color of the fire.click the select box which shown below, and select color dorge. Now you see the fire color comes out.

12) Now the fire color is actually based on two layers blending, we want it to be in 1 layer, so. on layer 1 COPY, Press Ctrl+E (Or select in the menu, Layer-->Merge Layers). there u go.

13) Now come to the fun part, Make sure u'r using Photoshop 7.0 or higher, select Filter-->Liquify, and select first tool at the left from the top. Drag on the fire, like this. (If u don't have Photoshop 7.0 or higher, u can use the smudge toor, but it doesn't make it as good, it looks kinda fake). First, u set the BRUSH SIZE to 50 on the right side of the dialog box, and set the BRUSH PRESSURE to 45, drag. After u done the first time, Set the BRUSH SIZE to 30 and the BRUSH PRESSURE to 35, drag. Look how I did.

14) Now we Duplicate the Text layer (look up the steps if u forget how to duplicate). Drage this layer copy above the fire layer. We need to fill it with black. Press Alt+Delete to fill with the forground color BLACK.

15) Now duplicate the fire layer, and drag it to above the text copy. Change its blending mode to SCREEN. Click this botton to add a mask on this layer. And then select Gradient Tool from Tool bar at the left, Use a Foreground color WHITE and Background color BLACK, drag on the text from the top to the bottom.

16) Activate the Smudge Tool on the tool bar, set the strength to 70%, use a 45 PIX soft round brush(depends on how large ur image is again), drag from up and down, down and up few times, make it like fire going through the texts.

17) Now create a new layer, press Ctrl+Alt+Shift+E to merge visible layer on this layer again. Set the opacity to 25% (it's in the Layer Window, this also depends on the size of ur image) and then select Filter-->Blur-->Gaussian Blur, set the radius to pretty high, here i use 35. Depends.

18) Finally, we are done with it. But I'm gonna put a reflection on it, so it looks much cooooler! Create new layer, and Ctrl+Alt+Shift+E again to merge visible layers on this layer And then press Ctrl+T, to free transform it. (If the text is too far away from the bottom, u can select the bottom part and tap Delete to delete it. and then transform) And then set the opacity lower, low enough that u think it looks fine. After u done, the canvas is too large? Yes, use the selection tool select the part that u want(If you don't even know what a selection tool is, u'd better go learn some much easier stuff first) and then, select Image-->Crop, there u go, SAVE~

OK, now we are done! U can put some decoration on the background. This is the one I did. Use Your Imagination, Do creative job!