Vista Smoke Effect

OK! First thing first: create a new document for the smoke. Make sure it is a lot larger than the actual image where you will use the smoke. For example I will use this smoke in a 800x600 image but the document where the smoke will be created is 1280x1024.

Create a black background. Actually it can be almost any color, but the best results are with black backgrounds. Get the Polygonal Lasso Tool and draw a shame similar to this one (actually it can be almost any irregular shape):

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No go to Edit->Fill and as the color make it #339fcc or something similar. press Ctrl+D to deselect. The result should be something like this:

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Now select the Dodge Tool, but the range to Highlight and color the corners and the edges of the shape. Now get the Burn Tool, set the range to Midtones and color the inner part. As closer you are to the middle, the stronger the burn should be. The result should be something like this:

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Now let's make this into smoke. Go to Filter->Distort->Wave, Use these settings:

Go to Edit->Fade Wave. Set it to 50% and press OK. I know right now it does not look like smoke at all...but repeat the last steps many times and it will look very realistic. You can even hit the randomize button from time to time to make it even more realistic. This is what I came up with. You result will be very different, but if you have applied the wave distortion many times than it should look really cool.

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Now create a new document with the size that you want your file to be. Mine is 800x600. Ad a black background to it. Now drag the smoke layer from the previous file to this new one. You may need to scale it in order to get the desired dimensions. Now create a new layer. Select the gradient tool and apply a gradient from Bottom to Top. This is the gradient that you will apply:

Set the blending mode to Overlay. Now just add some text.

Final result:

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Remember to experiment. You won't get the same result twice. Change the initial shape, the color and press the Randomize button more and you will get some interesting effects. Here is another example made with the same technique.

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