Fire Effect in Photoshop

Open Adobe Photoshop. Set the background color to black, and the foreground color to orange

Create a new document. Set it to whatever size you desire, and in the Background Contents: popup, select Background Color. Click OK.

Render clouds. From the '"Filters'" on the top toolbar and go down to '"Render"' and select Clouds.

Save your fire. This filter will render gaussian clouds with the foreground and background colors. Using different colors can lead to some interesting effects.

Ready for more? Check out the Advanced method below.

Adding Fire To Text

Open a document with a text layer, or create a new one. For this example, we used a simple black background with the word "FIRE!" in Arial Black on a second layer. It's important that the text be on a different layer than the background.

If you're using an existing document, work with a copy of the original.

Duplicate the text. Drag the original text layer to the New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers window.

 Add Outer Glow. Once duplicated, click on the click on the Fx menu at the bottom of the Layers menu, and select Outer Glow. In the resulting Layer Style window, change the glow color from yellow to white, and Opacity to 100%, as shown:

Click the OK button. Your image should now look like this:

Apply Gaussian Blur. From the Filter menu, select Blur > Gaussian Blur... Photoshop will prompt you with a warning that this action will rasterize the type layer, and that you will not be able to edit the actual text if you proceed. OK the warning, and set the blur so that it looks something like this:

Note that if your text layer is larger or smaller than our example, the actual Radius setting will vary. The example was done using 72pt type.

Set up the Smudge tool. Click on the Smudge tool (below the Gradient tool), then click on the brush settings at the top of the window. In the resulting smudge tool adjustment window, use these settings:

With these settings, you're going to "draw" the fire. As with any kind of brush work in Photoshop or other graphics applications, the use of a tablet is recommended.

 Create the flames. Using the smudge tool, brush from the letters outward, to give the appearance of flames. Short, quick strokes will give you the best result, and if you're using a brush, vary the thickness by pressure. Your fire should look as shown:

 When done, duplicate the smudged layer.

 Apply radial blur. From the Filter menu, select Blur > Radial Blur..., and in the resulting window make the following settings:

While subtle, this will give your fire an additional burst of energy

 Make your image grayscale. From the Image menu, select Grayscale. Once again, Photoshop will issue a warning that this will flatten the image, and can have an effect on your image. Click the Flatten button to continue.

Convert to Indexed Color. From the Image menu, select Mode > Indexed Color. Following that, from the same menu, select Color Table.

From the menu at the top of the Color Table window, select Black Body

Congratulations, you have made fire! Your image should look something like this: