Step 20: Draw A Rectangular Selection Around The Text

In a moment, we're going to bring our image into Photoshop's Liquify filter, a very powerful (and fun) filter used for warping and twisting pixels. Unfortunately, its power comes at a price. Depending on the size and complexity of the image you're working on, the Liquify filter can, on occasion, slow your computer down to a crawl, especially if you're working on an older system. In our case here, we're not working with anything terribly complex so we shouldn't run into any problems, but one way to limit how much work Photoshop has to do is to limit how much of the image actually opens inside the Liquify filter.

So how to we do that? We simply drag a selection around the area that we want to work with! First, we'll need the Rectangular Marquee Tool, so either select it from the Tools palette or press the letter M on your keyboard to select it with the shortcut:

Then, with the Rectangular Marquee Tool selected, simply click and drag a selection around the text, including the white streaks that we created with the Wind filter. Make sure to leave extra room above the text for our flames. Your selection should look something like this:

Step 21: Apply The Liquify Filter

With the area that we want to work with selected, go up to the Filter menu at the top of the screen and choose Liquify:

This brings up Photoshop's massive Liquify filter dialog box, which consists of some tools along the left, a very large preview area in the center, and a lot of potentially confusing options on the right. If you've never used the Liquify filter before, there's no need to panic. For this effect, all we need here is one tool, one option, and the preview area. Everything else, we can safely ignore.

First, select the Forward Warp Tool from the very top of the list of tools along the left:

Next, over on the right of the dialog box, you'll see a section called Tool Options, and the very first option in this section is Brush Size. This is where we can change the size of the brush we're using, and it's the only option we need for this effect. Start with a medium size brush. The default brush size of 100 should work fine:

The first thing we'll do is give our white streaks more of a wispy look to them. Click inside the streaks at different spots and drag your mouse a short distance either left or right to gently warp the streaks and give them some subtle, random curves. Just click, drag a short distance and release your mouse button, then click and drag again in a different area. Try not to click inside the letters themselves for now. Just warp and wiggle the streaks. Don't forget to include the streaks in the middle and bottom sections of the letters. When you're done, you should end up with something similar to what I have in the screenshot below:

Go back over to the Brush Size option on the right of the dialog box and choose a much smaller brush size. I'm going to set mine to around 15:

This time, click directly inside the letters and drag your mouse upward to create the shapes of little flames shooting out from them. You can drag straight up for some of the flames, but for others, try to drag on more of an angle to add more variety. Wiggling your mouse a little as you drag upward will also help create more interesting looking flames. If you make a mistake, press Ctrl+Z (Win) / Command+Z (Mac) to undo your last brush stroke, then continue on. If you need to undo several steps, press Ctrl+Alt+Z (Win) / Command+Option+Z (Mac) as many times as you need. When you're done with the tops of the letters, do the same thing with the bottom of the letters, as well as any other areas that look like they could use some flames shooting out of them. Don't spend too much time thinking about where your next flame should go, since fire should look random and chaotic, not planned and controlled. You should end up with something like this:

Finally, let's create some larger flames. Go back over to the Brush Size option and choose a larger size brush. I'm going to set my brush size to 50:

Once again, click directly inside the letters and drag upward, this time creating larger flames. Just as we did with the smaller flames, try to add some variety by dragging upward at different angles and wiggling your brush to bend and twist the shapes. Again, don't forget about the bottom and middle sections of the letters. When you're done, your final result should look something like this:

Click OK to exit out of the Liquify filter dialog box. There may be a brief pause while Photoshop applies the effect to the document, but when it's done, your text should be engulfed in a blaze of unrealistically white fire:

We'll add some much needed color to our flames next!