Creating Smoke In Photoshop From Scratch

May 16th, 2007 by Joen ,

Smoke - How To

Using Photoshop and a specific technique, it’s rather easy to create something that looks like smoke or fog—from scratch. It’s not as good as actual smoke photographed on a black background, but it’s much easier to come by. Here’s the trick…

digg_url = ‘http://www.noscope.com/journal/2007/05/photoshop-howto-smoke’;

digg_bgcolor = ‘#FBFBFB’;

digg_skin = ‘compact’;

Update: In a blatant attempt at self promotion, I’ve submitted this to digg to see what happens. We’ll see if it’s diggworthy.

Doodle

Smoke, Step 1

Draw a doodle. Preferrably keep the doodle in its own layer with a black background beneath.

Distort

Smoke, Step 2

Use the Liquify tool to distort the doodle. Liquify resides in the Filter > Liquify... menu. Using the various “forward warp”, “twirl” and “pucker” tools residing in the menu to the left, you distort the doodle as if you were fingerpainting.

Smoke, Step 3

Once you’ve applied the liquify transformation, select Edit > Fade Liquify.... In the dialog box that appears, set the opacity to 50% and apply.

Repeat

Now repeat the process until you’re satisfied:

  1. Liquify
  1. Fade Liquify to 50%
    Smoke, Step 4

    Smoke, Step 5

    Smoke, Step 6

    Smoke, Step 7

    Smoke, Step 8

    Smoke, Step 9

    If you enjoyed this tutorial, you might also enjoy my Creating Microworlds in Photoshop tutorial.


Websites linking to this post:

  1. MacManX.com » Blog Archive » Blogroll Dive: 5/29/07
  2. Photoshop: how to smoke - PhotoCamel - Your Friendly Photo Community
  3. Make smoke from one white line | Pointless Ramblings
  4. Candy by James ~ Journal Archive » Fun smoke

Comments (58)

  1. I will use this - thank you says:

    An excellent method of enhancing the crap resuls of 'nearly made it' smoke shots

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  2. Derek says:

    definately diggworthy!!!

    great smoke tutorial

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  3. {Oblivion?} says:

    I don't use whatever digg is.... but I do Stumble... and its certainly worthy of a 'like' on stumble.

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  4. thanks for the GREAT post! Very useful...

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  5. Very informative and useful. I have to try this soon.
    Thanks

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  6. Eric says:

    Thanks, you made my day! Just what I was looking for.

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  7. zeus709 says:

    This is without a doubt one of the best and most natural looking Smoke effects I've found in my searches.

    The effect is just what I've been looking for.
    This tutorial ROCKS

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  8. Jake says:

    These is a very helpful tutorial indeed... Great work! Thanks for the resource.

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  9. dan says:

    brilliant (come on arsenal)

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  10. Great technique, will certainly be using this on my next website design. Stumbled it! -thumbs up!

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  11. DavyX says:

    SIMLPY BRILLIANT.Thanks a lot....this will be invaluable.

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  12. penu says:

    Got to tell you that this tutorial is the sh@t

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  13. hayatbebek says:

    Greats work ;) Thank you.

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