Creating fire asset for a text: Using High pass, Sharpen, and Vanishing point.

For this upcoming tutorial we need couple of images of fire waves, So Google it to get some of these fire images so that we could start with our tutorial.

Lets start with the Text.

By using text tool(T) write "TEXT" word.

Go to the layer palette, and right click on the text layer to select 3d option (New 3d extrusion) provided by Photoshop cs 6. It is really helpful for making 3 dimensional texts.

Now going to play and experiment with the Text settings for 3d view. I prefer following View point for text, and the light source same as well:

Take a look over the 3d layer and make changes to the point source light, text layer. I have used Point source of light, tilted from top to bottom and to the right direction. For more details see below:

Alright, render the text by going to the 3d menu.

Now go back to your layers palette and convert the text layer to smart object by right clicking on the layer and selectinig the "Convert to Smart object".

By now we have a 3d text to start the work on the effect over it.

Alright, for this particular effect select an image of fire waves and start cutting fire waves indivually, one by one. By using the lasso tool make selection around the desire fire wave and copy paste it on seperate layer one by one. Complete the work as follow:

After collecting all the images for fire waves, now we need to put them over the 3d text in a perspective manner. We can use either the transform tool (Warp tool) or we can use the vanishing point tool, which I have used on this one.

To use this tool, first we need to select one fire wave (by making selection "ctrl+click on the layer Icon") at a time so that we can copy it(Ctrl+c). Now you have copied the indiviual fire wave, we will paste it later.

Now create a new blank layer and go to the filter menu, select Vanishing point option. Click on the clipboard to create an plane.

This plane is the perspective directive so that you could have an estimation to where you want to place the fire wave.

The plane which we are using is going to transform the image to stretch and match the direction in which we have place the plane.

See below for quick reference:

Now paste the image(Ctrl+P) and press control+T for transformation tool. Place the image according to your choice.

Do this method as much as you want for different fire wave effects.

Now When you are done select all the New fire wave layers and merge them.

By selecting this new layer go to the filter menu and select Other option where you could click on the high pass option for sharpening the image. See the option below:

Selecting this new merged fire wave layer go to the blending mode option and select Hard light.

Hard light blend mode screens the image color if it is an light color or multiply the color if it an dark color being used. In both the cases it makes the effect of harsh spotlight effect. I am also keep refining the surrounding area(coal stone).

Also I want to add some blue effect over the fire, so going to add 4 layers of Blue color.

By making a selection of fire waves, fill the blue color and give this layer "color" blend mode with 54% opacity. see the guideline below:

Now add brightness to the fire effect.

Now it is time to use some cool real smoke brushes. You could find smoke brush's script online or visit here:

http://www.brusheezy.com/brushes/1830-real-smoke-photoshop-brushes

Download the script, and copy paste it as follow:

C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS6 (64 Bit)\Presets\Brushes

Alright use the brushes and make some real smoke out of the fire. Use it as much as you can and when you are done select all the layers and merge them to flatten the image.

Now merge all the layers including the base layer, and go to the filter menu to select the sharpen option.

Although you could use the sharpen tool but to get an quick result we will resume with the previous. Click on the smart sharpen option and follow the below option:

Smart sharpen Sharp the image

That's it we are done, see the final image below: