How to Set the World on Fire with Photoshop
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I know you Photoshop people love to set stuff on fire, so here is a tutorial on how to set the whole world on fire. Enjoy! [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]Step 1
Thistime we will work with a square document. Make it fairly large 1280 x1280 will do just fine (final comp will be a bit bigger).Press Dto reset FG/BG-color, then add a new Gradient Fill Layer – Name it“City Lights”. Pick a Radial gradient that goes from a white center toa black edge.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]Step 2
Now we will add some filters, it can be helpful to use the Filter Gallery to append these three filters…Filter > Artistic > Plastic Wrap
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]Filter > Stylize > Glowing Edges
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]Filter > Texture > Stained Glass
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Goto Image > Canvas Size and set it to 2048 x 1536px or whatever sizeyou want your final composition size to be (note: the image will bescaled down later on).
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Duplicate the City Lights Layer, then scale down the original (City Lights) to the size you want for the earth on your final piece.Merge City Lights with Background. Name the Layers as shown below.
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Working on the layer Flames. Select Filter > Blur > Radial Blur.
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Select Filter > Distort > Wave.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]Repeat the filter 2 or 3 times, each time click the Randomize-button (Ctrl + Alt + F). Set the blending mode of Flames to Screen, and lower the opacity to about 70%.
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Duplicate Background and place it on the top of your layer stack, name it Smoke.Press D to reset your FG/BG-color, then select Filter > Render >Difference Clouds. Repeat the filter 5-6 times (or until you see a nicefire effect). Set the Blending Mode of Smoke to Color Dodge.
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Add a new Color Balance Adjustment Layer, place it on the top of the layer stack.
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Head over to sxc and download this stock photo(free membership required). Open up the picture in Photoshop, selectthe earth using the Circular Marquee Tool copy it and paste it in ourfire document (I suggest you select a bit inside the actual edge, toleave out any white).
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Resize the earth so that it fits your “fireball” thingy [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.] It does not matter if there are some white dots outside the earth. In fact, it might even look cooler!
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Create a Layer Mask for Earth layer. Use a medium sized brush and start brushing the mask with Black/White to hide and reveal details.Power tip: Use the smudge tool to mess up the edge of the mask, to make the fire look more natural.
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Add a Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer, choose to use previous layer as Clipping Mask. Lower the Saturation and Lightness.
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Create a new document 4000 x 3000 px, render some default colored clouds, copy and paste to our composition as a new layer Clouds.
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Set the Blending Mode to Lighten for Clouds.Add a Layer Mask, fill it with black. Grab a soft large brush, set theopacity to about 5%, then paint in some clouds by drawing on the maskwith a white color. Draw around the earth, then crank up the opacityand lower the size of the brush when you get more close to the edge.
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Ctrl + Click on the Layer Icon for Earth. Create a new Fill Layer, any color. Set Fill (located below Opacity) of the Layer to 0%.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]Double-click the layer and add an Inner Glow effect (dark red color).
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Duplicate the Inner Glow layer you just created. Move the layer down so that it gets placed just above Background. Un-check the Outer Glow effect, then add an Outer Glow instead.Duplicate the top Inner Glowagain, this time make the inner glow a bright red color and decreasethe effect. Set outer glow of this layer to a bright red color anddecrease the effect.
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Forthe star sky, create a new layer on top of all other layers. Fill itwith black, then go to Filter > Noise > Add Noise.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]SelectFilter > Blur > Gaussian Blur, set it to about 0,4-0,8. Add aLevels Adjustment Layer, use Previous layer as Clipping Mask and dragthe Midtones-slider to the right until you see a nice sky. Mask out theearth, then set the Blending Mode of the sky to Lighten.
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Cool,almost there! Adding one final Color Balance Adjustment Layer on top ofthe whole layer stack will help you to tweak the colors of the finalimage. Add some blue for midtones and shadows, then crank up the yellowand red for highlights. Also on the Earth layer you can setthe Lightness and Saturation to almost 0 and control the effect with aradial gradient + brush mask instead. If you want the lava lesstextured, you can duplicate the Background and blur it, then mask parts of the fire that you want to blur.When you are happy with the result, save a copy of the image then go to Image > Resize.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]Setting re-sampling algorithm to Bicubic Sharper will keep the stars and the lava crisp.
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Select the Background layer and go to Filter > Render > Lens Flare. You may have to play around with the position to get the flare right.
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Createa new layer on top of all other layers. Then repeat the Lens Flarefilter (Ctrl + F). Lower the Opacity of the layer a bit and set theBlending Mode to Screen. You might want to mask out some of the detailson this one.
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That is it! Not so hard right? If you enjoyed this tutorial,please consider sharing it… it would mean a lot to me! (See below fordetails). Also, subscribe to stay updated with more tutorials like thisone.Thank you, have fun!
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