• Fire Brushes: Photoshop Tutorial

    by
    Shards
    Published on 26th April 2010 01:01 AM
    31 Comments Comments
    My search for a tutorial that produced realistic flames was in vain. The most convincing attempt at recreating fire was using 3D programs which rendered particles. Most other Photoshop fire tutorials are just not convincing enough. This tutorial will help you bring fire and flames to your images in more amazing ways than you can imagine.

    Presenting:



    Create fire through Brushes

    These are the fire brushes that I have developed. Brushes are simply images of something that you paint onto your canvas.

    1. First download this set of brushes to your desktop: HERE

    2. Go to Photoshop and go to your Brush Palette. Click on the small arrow to the right of the pallete and go to 'Load Brushes':



    3. Find the brush that you just downloaded and hit 'Load'.

    4. Now you have the fire brush!

    5. Make a new file 1000px by 1000px. Fill it with black (Alt+backspace). Make a new layer. Make your brush white and click on the canvas.

    6. Now go to Colour Balance and put in these values:




    7. There you have it: fire. (I am sort of colour blind, so use your own eyesight to create the exact colour that you want).



    Some Quick Examples of what to do with your FIRE

    I decided to test the fire out in a few different scenarios, a bit more time would have made them look more finished, but I'll leave that job up to you.



    Comments: You can make your own text by simply brushing over white text and using gradiants to merge them together!



    My Comments: Tank shooting and other gunfire. I decided to go for the dramatic rather than too much realism.



    My Comments: A stealth fighter destroys sleek modernist house. Enjoy the power of blowing up things with these brushes. Several brushes are great to make exploding effects!



    My Comments: Sub Zero with fireball. I just liked the irony of it all.

    Final

    Be creative with these new toys. Please feel free to post results.
    This article was originally published in forum thread: Fire Brushes: Photoshop Tutorial started by Shards View original post
    Comments 31 Comments
    1. *->Static<-*'s Avatar
      Haha, nice work .

      I'll download them as soon as I have the chance :-p.
      Reply
    1. eth's Avatar
      One word: marvellous.

      I haven't tested the brushes yet, but the preview is enough to prove their complete awesomeness. I have a few fire brushes, but none of them are as detailed as yours. Good stuff mate, good stuff.
      Reply
    1. Nesuke's Avatar


      I used some of the brushes to aid the effect with the render. I think this is close to my best work...
      Reply
    1. Shards's Avatar
      Nesuke, work like that ^ makes me glad to have made those brushes. Niceone.

      Thanks for the comments everyone, appreciate it.
      Reply
    1. RazoR_'s Avatar
      I think you'd get a better / more realistic result using a gradient map layer instead of with color balance. Could be just my personal opinion though, but I find it easier to work with too.



      Back in the days I was thinking about trying to animate fire in photoshop realistically... these brushes will come in handy when I decide to go through with it . Thx
      Reply
    1. Shards's Avatar
      Thats actually a better route because it gives you more freedom on how to manip the brushes to your image. Eg: having the gradient with brightest at the bottom of an explosion is much more realistic rather than a wholeistic wash of yellow that is produced from colour balance. Perhaps using a combination of colour balance and gradiant maps could also produce some good results...plus at least with the colour balance you can brush grey into the mask to create any hue variations. And then you have the gradient overlaying that. I might try that in an explosion tutorial I am planning, prolly would look good. Thx for your comment.

      Back in the days I was thinking about trying to animate fire in photoshop realistically... these brushes will come in handy when I decide to go through with it
      That would rock man. Would it be similar to the effect in your transition tutorial (and your current sig)?
      Reply
    1. Nesuke's Avatar
      Thanks for the comments on my banner shards! I've just taken another look at it after doing more work since and I thought... Nah, it was better than that...

      I guess what's fresh in your mind looks good at the time, then when it runs stale, you go off it.
      Reply
    1. RazoR_'s Avatar
      It's still far from what I hope to achieve eventually but you get the idea... animated fire so far

      I'd still need to have the upper layer scale down to shrink to the middle by the end of the animation, just a little short on time etc at the moment.

      *edit* I just watched it myself again, and I can't stress enough how much work I'll still need to do on this to reach the effect I want !
      Reply
    1. LoseR's Avatar
      What you have now looks pretty amazing. I know how to do simple animations, but I can honestly say I have no idea how I would even attempt something like what you are doing.
      Reply
    1. GekkoPixie's Avatar
      These are fantastic fire brushes. I wish they were compatible with Photoshop 7.0, but that's okay. Thank you for sharing these.
      Reply
    1. Hamadms's Avatar
      i cant adjust color balance even if i try ur tutorial they remain white
      Reply
    1. RazoR_'s Avatar
      Try merging the layer with the firebrushes on with a filled background layer and then adjusting the colors.
      Reply
    1. Hamadms's Avatar
      I am a total newbie tell me how plzz
      Reply
    1. RazoR_'s Avatar


      I'm guessing at the moment you have a seperate layer for your brush, in my screenshot this is layer 2. If you try to apply color balance or any other adjustment to it you'll find it won't work.
      9 chances out of 10 you'll have a background layer though, represented above by layer 1. If you merge the layers as shown above (selecting both layers using control (not on the thumbnails though, that'll make a mask selection) and right click to get the dropoutmenu you see in my screenshot).
      This should give you a single layer with dark background with the fire brush on it like in my example layer 0.
      This is what we need ! Applying color balance etc should work fine on this.

      If you still can't get it to work, don't be afraid to post again. We'll get to the bottom of it...
      Reply
    1. Callan's Avatar
      you might have to change your color mode from grayscale to rgb color

      go to Image>Mode>RGB Color
      Reply
    1. Hamadms's Avatar
      thanks razor 4 helping me out
      Reply
    1. mq2's Avatar
      sorry for double post....
      Reply
    1. mq2's Avatar
      Quote Originally Posted by Nesuke View Post


      I used some of the brushes to aid the effect with the render. I think this is close to my best work...
      can any one teach me how to do like this
      Reply
    1. Nesuke's Avatar
      Keep reading up on tutorials and you will eventually be able to apply techniques and styles to create art as good and better than this...
      Reply
    1. mq2's Avatar
      thanks... i did this but i think i have a lot of mistake... but now i have a courage to try
      and make my own best work.. any way thank you very much Nesuke...

      Reply
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