Create Smoke on Your Photos

Quick reference

• 00:04 Let's get started and make something hot! In this photo here, we have a cup of
• 00:08 coffee,
• 00:08 but there's really no indication whether it's hot or not. Let me show you how to
• 00:12 create smoke or steam to give the illusion of heat.
• 00:14 The first thing we have to do is create a shape.
• 00:17 To do this, I'll use the pen tool, but you can use any method you prefer.
• 00:21 As I'm drawing out the shape, you might notice that looks nothing like smoke -
• 00:25 don't worry too much about the wispiness or the direction of the smoke,
• 00:28 that will all be defined with a few filters later on. Once your shape is created, we
• 00:32 want to make sure to convert the shape to smart filters.
• 00:35 This will ensure that if you want to edit the filters later on,
• 00:38 that option will be available to you. Let's start adding our filters.
• 00:41 The first filter we're going to add will be a gaussian blur.
• 00:46 This will help eliminate the sharp edges of our shape.
• 00:49 Head up to filter, blur and then ‘gaussian blur’.
• 00:53 And I'll use the value of 14. You are free to play around with the value to
• 00:57 achieve different results.
• 00:58 Now that the blur is added we need to add some wispiness .
• 01:01 We're going to do this with the wave filter.
• 01:04 Again, head up to filter, distort and then ‘wave’.
• 01:08 Now, if you're working with a white shape, it might be difficult to see
• 01:11 exactly what your shape will look like,
• 01:13 so you may have to undo and try again a few times to get a nice result.
• 01:16 I'm going to use the following values:
• 01:19 625,113, 287, 1, 2,
• 01:23 and 100% for the scales.
• 01:27 Now a quick reminder, while these settings work for me, they may need to be tweaked
• 01:31 for your project.
• 01:32 Now that the wave is added, it's still not looking wispy enough.
• 01:35 Let's add one more filter to really give it some flow.
• 01:38 Again, head up to filter, distort and then this time let's try a ‘zigzag’.
• 01:43 For these settings, the amount will be 30 ridges,
• 01:46 and make sure the style is set to ‘around center’.
• 01:49 When you press OK, you should see a much more believable shape.
• 01:53 We're far from complete. We're going to add one more blur to separate the
• 01:57 edges a little bit.
• 01:58 Instead of a gaussian blur, we're going to add a surface blur.
• 02:02 Because this filter gives you a live preview on your document, it may take a
• 02:06 bit longer to load the results.
• 02:08 I'm going to pop in 62 and 214 for the values.
• 02:12 Good. We're almost there. The shape itself is looking nice but it
• 02:17 could use some texture.
• 02:18 To do this, we're going to first create a new layer and then create a selection
• 02:22 from our smoke layer.
• 02:23 This can be done by holding on Command or Control and clicking on the layers
• 02:27 thumbnail.
• 02:27 Once a selection is made, head up to filter, render, and then ‘clouds’.
• 02:31 When the clouds are added, the effect is way overdone, so I'm going to
• 02:35 simply set the blending mode
• 02:37 to overlay to get a nice blend. And now that the texture is added, there are a few tweaks
• 02:42 I want to make to move away from pure white smoke.
• 02:44 Double click on the smoke layer to bring the upper layer styles
• 02:48 and go ahead and add a satin layer style. For the values, keep blend mode at Multiply and
• 02:53 the color at black.
• 02:54 Change the opacity to 30, the distance to 30 and the size to 15.
• 02:58 This will give a bit of darkness to the smoke.
• 03:01 Now head up to the blending options at the top left and reduce the overall
• 03:05 opacity of the layer to 50%.
• 03:07 That's much better. Now we could stop here,
• 03:11 but just to add something extra small, I can duplicate this layer and easily edit the
• 03:15 filters by double clicking on the one that I want to change.
• 03:17 This is why it's so important to convert your layer for smart filters.
• 03:21 I'll go ahead and edit the wave filter and simply increase the maximum altitude to 14.
• 03:25 When you accept the changes, it will take a few seconds the show up on your
• 03:29 screen, as Photoshop
• 03:30 has to put together all the filters all over again
• 03:34 Once a new result is live,
• 03:35 decrease the opacity to 20% and we're done. I don't know about you, but
• 03:39 this is looking much hotter.
• 03:40 Try it yourself, but remember you're going to have to play around with the settings to
• 03:43 get the results you're looking for.

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