Secret to the cool icy flame photoshop effect, anyone?

UPDATED June 29 2008

So I will reveal the method to create that effect in Adobe Photoshop to anyone who wishes to know about it

Okay, this thread has been getting a lot of traffic everyday, so im writing a small tutorial for it!

CLICK on the images to get a clearer view

1. Create a canvas 800×600. Black Background. Write some text. Rasterize the Layer. Duplicate the text layer. Keep a copy of the rasterised text untouched. Merge the rest.

Layer1:

Layer2:

2. Layer2 Filter/Stylize/Wind Direction “Left” x twice, Direction “Right” x twice

3. Layer2 Filter/Distort/Ripple Amount 75% Size Small

4. Image/Rotate Canvas/90 CW and then Layer2 Filter/Stylize/Wind Direction “Left” x twice, Direction “Right” x twice

5. Layer2 Filter/Distort/Ripple Amount 100% Size Medium then Image/Rotate Canvas/90 CCW

Layer2 now looks like:

6. Select Layer1. Hide layer 2 from view.

Pick Magic Wand. Select the first character. Right click/Add to Selection and select all characters

Select/Modify/Contact 3 Pixels

Select Paint Tool. Right Click/Master Diameter Adjust as needed. Pick Colour. Run your brush over the selection on one straight horizontal swipe.

Unhide Layer2. Now things should something like this

7. Select Layer2. Image/Adjustement/Hue/Saturation Check Colorize. Increase the Saturation

Voila!

If you tweak along the various stages with settings you can get great effects. Like converting the Canvas in to Polar coordinates. Filter/Distort/Polar Coordinates “Rectangular to Polar” and then applying wind would yeild something like

or

Have fun !!