Blast Zone

This effect is good for wallpapers and backgrounds. We’re going to create a fiery, smoke-filled explosive image.

Start with a new image. It works a little better if your image is square. I’m using a 500×500px canvas.

Hit “D” to set the foreground and backgroudn colors to th eir default values. Now go to Filters - Render - Clouds and then Filters - Render - Difference Clouds.

Hit Ctrl+F three more times, to re-apply the difference clouds filter.

Now hit Ctrl+L to bring up the levels dialog and change the imput levels to 10, 1.2, 135. Now hit Ctrl+I to invert the image.

Now go to Filters - Stylize - Extrude and use the following settings: Type = Blocks, Size = 2, Depth = 50, Level-based. Check Solid Front Faces.

Now duplicate the layer and add a layer mask to the new layer. Fill the mask with a black to white radial gradient from the center of the image outwards. Hide the layer below so you can see what you’re doing.

Go back to the bottom layer and select Image - Adjust - Hue Saturation and use the following settings: Hue = 220, Saturation = 40, Lightness = 0. Check Colorize.

Go back to the top layer and select Filters - Blur - Radial Blur and set the amount to 10, type to Zoom, and quality to Good.

Merge the two layers and hit Ctrl+I. Now go to Image - Adjust - Variations, and click on red once, and yellow once.

Now your image is filled with a smoke-filled explosion.

Added Saturday, May 13th, 2006 at 9:06 pm under Drawing & Painting.