Well I’ve been thinking what I could do for my next tutorial. This will probably be my most detailed yet, because explosion effects take a while to prefect, and its very detailed. I'll try to do my best on this one, but if you want the best results, you need to follow this tutorial as closely as you can. 1. First you want to get your sig size. For this sig I used the dimensions 150x350, but you can pick a size that you like. Now, always when I start out with a sig, I use the clouds effect. Go to Filter>Render>Clouds and make sure your colors are selected on black and white. This will give the sig some contrast to start out. 2. Now you are going to need the following brushes in order to make an explosion sig. I've provided links to the brushes and I know they all work for ps7, so hopefully this will help Big Brushes 200 Tech Brushes BB 200 Tech Brushes Vol. 2 Rust and Grunge Despirited Abstract Set 2 Night Sky Now I always like to start out with a little grunge brushing for the next step. Use the rust and grunge brush to brush around, getting some dark spaces and some light spaces. Each layer you want to keep alternating black and white. Like one layer black, then the next white. Keep doing this for 4-7 layers until it looks pretty filled up. It’s probably better if it’s a little lighter then dark, because next we will use a brush that will bring out the dark areas better. Now we are going to use the despirited abstract set 2 brushes. Now make a new layer and make sure the color is on black. Now also set the layer to soft light. Now start brushing around and make sure the areas don't get too dark. This brush will bring out the darkness in the sig, but at the same time, keep alot of the grunge brush look to it. Do only one layer of this. If it looks too dark, lower the opacity of the layer to lighten the brush strokes up. 3. Now that first part was basically a warm up for what to come. To prepare the sig I will use one-two color balance layers. Do not add much color in the color balance, nothing more then +,-10 on any color. You don't want to make a color theme before we add in the multicolor, yet. This is just to prime the sig and give it a crisp look. Now its time to find a good render. For explosion sigs, you want to find something that is blowing up or being broken. In this case, maybe a burnout car render would be good, or a maybe a supernova, or something that can be blown up. The explosion has to work with the theme, so keep that in mind. I used a burnout theme, and here is the render I used Now its time to cut it and put it in our sig. First cut using the magnetic lasso. Then place it in the sig with the right size. Try your best not to distort the image too much, although you will probably have to resize it. Then do ctrl+x to cut the image you just lassoed and then click on the sig, and then hit ctrl+v is paste it on the sig. It will look crapy, but we will modify it to make it look good. First thing now is that you need to try to use the magic wand to cut out some of the pieces that don't belong in the render, like some of the bg. Now we need to blend it in the bg. First lasso around the render loosely, it doesn't matter if you don't get it perfect, there are some areas you want to cut off. Now go to Select>Feather and you want to set it to 20 pixels. Then go to Layer>Add Layer Mask> Reveal Selection. This will now blend in the edges of the render into the sig, making it looks better. Also take off the color of the render,(when selected the render layer) by pushing ctrl+u to bring up saturation options on the render layer. Then just lower the saturation to -100 or the lowest it can go. 4. Now come more brushing. Now we are going to use some rust and grunge. First layer should be white and try to brush the area that you want to have the explosion. Try to lower the opacity a little if you need to in order for it not too be too bright. Now brush after that using color. Use orange, yellow and red around where you want the explosion to be. Use other colors like blue green to contrast the explosion on the outsides. Try to create a color contrast like the one in this picture Now I want to increase this contrast by using the adjustment layer Brightness/Contrast. Click on Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Brightness/Contrast. Turn the contrast to a number between +15 to +25. If the sig looks too dark after that turn the brightness on a little from +5 to +15.
Now this is where it gets a bit difficult. You have several things to do. In this sig, you want to duplicate the render several times. To do this, right click on the render layer and select duplicate layer. Then when you have the new one move it just a fraction off the first render. That will give it a slight blur effect. Next up you want to find another render that has some fire effects. I searched on google, and here is a good render, if cut out right could help you out to make a good fire, flame effect. Now after cutting it and placing it in the sig, this is what it looks like Now again go on a series of color and try to add more power into the flame, still keep the contrast with the sides of the sig. And then add another Brightness/Contrast layer. 5. Now this is where the crucial star brush comes in. First of all, the big star in one of the brushes, it what we need. Find that in the night sky brush set. Put the color on a white. Make sure it is behind the render of the cars. The object is that you want the explosion to look real, and only have it behind the cars, only letting peaks of it through. Since the render layers are duplicated, try putting the star explosion in-between the layers. That what I did in this example. Then you want to add in some little pixels of molten metal flames, so use the stardust again to create some little dots near the explosion and the cars. 6. Now I’m going to add pavement below the car, so it looks like they are driving. Using the same picture I had before, I’ll take the pavement from the road and put it under the cars. Then brush some more with color again, keeping the same contrast, only trying instead to go grayish where the roadway is. Then again, do another Brightness/Contrast Layer. 7. You are almost done, now all you have to do is add extra effects, a boarder, and text. First I like to some blur effects with tech brushes. So in this case you want to use the BB 200 Tech Brushes Vol. 2 set. Just make 1-2 layers of these brushes and just brush 2-4 times with one linear pattern. Get the color white so it will show up. Then to blur it, you need to go to the Filter>Blur>Motion Blur. The more it is the more blurring you will do with the tech, pick something that looks cool. I did some color balance and more brightness/contrasting, along with some brushing. Here is how you can get a 3 pixel Boarder a. First, create a layer above everything even the color balance b. Then, right click>select all c. Right click again>stroke d. Now first have color black with a 3pxl boarder. Hit ok e. Repeat steps a-c f. Now this time do a 2pxl boarder and under mode click clear. Hit ok g. Again repeat steps a-c h. Now this time do 1pxl and have it black with the mode of normal again. Hit ok And thats it, you just made a good 3pxl boarder.
8. Finally its time to add text. Use dafont to find a good font for the sig. In this theme, its probably better if you go for a bigger sig that has more boldness and volume. You want to use effects like shadow and bevel. When you use bevel, make sure the size and soften to zero. Also if you want to, add a shadow and other effects. I used the font Kimberley font for the main text and Visitor font for the quote. 9. Now just look over your work and see if there is anything you want to modify. When I saw mine, I wanted to add a little more blur where the explosion is, so again I used the tech brushes and tried to blur them to make the effect. Then I played around with another color balance, trying to get the best looking color. I also did a layer of selective color to get out the blue in the edge of the sig. It you made it to the end, congratulations, because this is a very difficult tutorial My Final Result:
That's focking amazing!! The best tutorial i ever seen and the result is good to! GJ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
hmm not sure if its the best, Tois was also pretty good. but this one is getting close , and the outcome is better imo
