creating artificial elements

Image 1 – Light beams and rainbow
1. Duplicate layer, using the burn tool lighten the edges of the clouds where the sun would be.
2. Add a vibrance layer and bump up the vibrance a tad (in hindsight I would have skipped this step).
3. Duplicate layer, go to Adjust-threshold. Adjust threshold until only the brightest bits in the sky are visible. Now go to blur-radial blur and adjust until you have beams of light radiating down. Adjust that layer blend mode to screen.
4. Add a mask to that layer to hide any light beams that look out of place.
5. Now make a new layer, select gradient - from the gradients select - Russell’s Rainbow - position the rainbow, or part there of, where you would like it.
6. Change the blend mode of that layer to pin light.
7. Mask the rainbow off areas you don’t want it.

8. Duplicate the layer and select screen blend mode.

Before

After



Image2 - Adding flames, smoke and heat vapour

1.       Duplicate layer – sharpen, smart sharpen.

2.       Duplicate layer – with a bright yellow colour (I sampled colour of a real flame) paint a soft bar across the base of each umbrella.

3.       Using the smudge tool, push up from the bar creating ‘flames’.

4.       Paint a little red on the flames and smudge this too.

5.       Change the blend mode of this layer to lighten – or whatever looks best.

6.       Use the eraser at low opacity to ‘thin’ the flames a little.

7.       Duplicate the layer and using the marquee tool select each flame and flip it vertically – place each flame at the appropriate spot to reflect the main flame in the water.

8.       Reduce the opacity of the flame reflection layer.

9.       Make a new layer and above each flame add smoke by drawing an erratic shape with the polygonal tool and fill with a bluish smoke colour.

10.   Dodge and burn various sections of this shape for various smoke tones.

11.   Now go to filter –distort – waves and apply these settings

Generators "5"
- Wavelength "10"/"120"
- Amplitude "5"/"35"
- Scale at "100%" for both.

12.   Smudge the smoke softly and change the blend mode of the layer to - pass through.

13.   Now add a colour balance adjustment layer and give the scene a warm glow – use a mask to reveal only the areas around the flame with the glow.

14. Go back to the sharpened background copy and duplicate - go filter - blur motion blur. create a mask and leave the blur only above each flame to appear as 'heat'.

Before

After