How to Create a Fire Background Using Adobe Photoshop 6 Tutorial
Creating your own fire backgrounds in Photoshop is not only fun, but also incredibly useful. Fire plays a prominent role in many designs and graphics, and the ability to draw fire from scratch means you can make it suit your image precisely. By utilizing a few of Adobe Photoshop 6's standard tools, creating a fire background becomes a snap.
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Instructions
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Go to File>New. For the purpose of this tutorial, set the document dimensions to 1024 by 768 pixels with a resolution of 72 pixels per inch. This size and resolution suits the most common screen sizes and can be used as a desktop wallpaper image if you choose.
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Click on the foreground color swatch at the bottom of the tool palette located on the right side of your screen. This will bring up the Color Picker dialog box. Choose a very dark color and click OK.
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Click on the Paint Bucket tool in the tool palette. This icon looks like a paint bucket being poured. Click anywhere on your document to fill the background with your dark color.
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Open your layers palette (if it isn't already open) by going to Window>Layers. At the very bottom of the layers palette is a row of icons. The second from the right looks like a square with the bottom right corner folded; this is the Create New Layer icon. Click on it.
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Set your foreground color to a dark reddish-orange.
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Select the Brush tool from the tool palette. In the tool menu across the top of your screen, choose a soft edge brush from the drop-down list, and set the brush diameter to 150 pixels.
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Paint several tall vertical strokes in the new, blank layer; fill the bottom two-thirds of the document with the reddish-orange color. Let the top of the shape vary in height with some strokes being taller than others.
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Select the Dodge tool (which looks like a dark circle with a diagonal line shooting from the bottom right) from the tool palette. In the tool menu, set the tool to Midtones in the drop-down list.
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Paint several strokes over the reddish-brown color. Vary the brush size (found in the tool menu) for different strokes, and continue "dodging." You'll see that when you use the Color Dodge tool, it lightens and brightens the reddish-orange color.
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Select the Smudge tool from the tool palette. The Smudge tool looks like a hand with a finger smudging. Click and drag the smudge tool through the reddish-orange layer to create tongues of fire. Vary the size of the Smudge tool for different strokes. This step is really a matter of taste, so just keep going at it with the Smudge tool until it looks good to you. If you do something that you really don't like, press Control+Z to undo your last action.
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Create a new layer by clicking the Create New Layer icon in your layers palette.
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Set your foreground color to a somewhat dark orange color. Select the Brush tool, and set the size to about 70 pixels. On the new layer, paint several strokes that fit inside the previous layer.
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Set your foreground color to a golden yellow color, and change the brush size to 45 pixels. On the same layer as the orange brush strokes, paint some shorter yellow strokes that fit inside the orange strokes.
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Select and use the Dodge tool to create some color variations.
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Select and use the Smudge tool to create more tongues of fire until you achieve your desired look.
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Set the Blend Mode for the orange and yellow layer to Soft Light. The Blend Mode can be found in the drop-down list at the top of the layers palette.
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Select the Dodge tool and set it to Highlights in the tool menu. Vary your brush size and paint in highlights for both layers.
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Tips & Warnings
Studying pictures of fire or even the flame of a lit candle will help you decide how to illustrate fire in Photoshop.
References
Resources
- Photo Credit Fire image by Auran from Fotolia.com
