Creating a Ring of Fire from Scratch

We will begin with a blank canvas of 400x400px, with a black background. Then create a big circle selection with the Elliptical Marquee tool, and with White chosen as the foreground color, right-click the selection and choose Stroke. I did 3px, Center:

Now, duplicate this layuer by right-clicking it in the Layer window and clicking Duplicate Layer. Hide the top layer and go back to the original. Goto Filters > Stylize > Wind. For the options, choose Wind and From the Right:

Repeat this filter as many times as you like, by pressing Ctrl+F. You may find you need to move the circle more-over to the right of the canvas as to not cut off the top of the wind strokes. I applied the filter twice:

Now goto Edit > Transform > Rotate, and rotate it 90° Clockwise so it is the right way up (Tip: Hold Shift while rotating to rotate in set increments). Then Ctrl-click the original layer with the circle still on it to make a selection of it, and choose the Move tool. Now click on the following align buttons (with the wind layer selected) on the Move toolbar to re-align the two layers:

With all layers now visible, we should have something like this:

Next, we want to make the flames more realistic. Two ways to do this are: 1, use the Liquify and Blur filters, or 2, use the Blur tool. We will cover the Blur tool - go ahead and choose the Blur tool from the toolbox. Choose a soft brush and a Strength of 50%. Now use this brush to go around the circle, smudging and bending the flames slightly:

Once completed, we should have something like this:

Now let's add some color. Goto Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation. Experiment with the sliders, and make sure the Colorize check box is checked, to get the color of flames you desire:

Now duplicate this layer and experiment with the top layer's blending mode. This is Color Burn:

Finally, duplicate the original layer (the white circle) and move it to the top of the composition. Add an Outer Glow layer style to it and use Filter > Blur > Gaussian blur to make it look like this:

And as always, please experiment with PhotoShop to get the best results.

Painting Text onto Wood

Using a displacement map in Photoshop can create some really cool effects. Today, we'll use a displacement map to make some text appear as if it is painted onto wood. There are many different surfaces you can use for this. Brick works well also. With a quick Google search you can find many different textures and surfaces to use.

Let's start by importing our wood image into Photoshop. Double click on the background layer in the layers palette and turn the background into a layer and name it wood.

Next select the type tool and create your text on top of the wood layer. I'm using a maroon color #6f0202. Use a thick font such as Impact. Give the text a slight tilt by typing ctrl + t which will bring up the transform tool:

In the layers palette, right click on the wood layer and duplicate it. Drag the copy below the wood layer and type shift + ctrl + u to desaturate it. Alternatively, you can desaturate by going to Image>Adjustments>Desaturate .

Copy this new desaturated layer to a new grayscale document. This will be the displacement map. We have to apply a Gaussian blur to the displacement map (grayscale document we just created) to soften the wood or else the edges of the text will appear too grainy. Apply a Guassian blur by going to filter>blur>guassian blur. If you're using the wood image I supplied, set the radius to 1.5

Otherwise you'll have to experiment. The amount of blur depends on the image you use and how busy the surface texture is. Save the document as displace.psd. Note: Photoshop uses the .psd format for displacement images.

Back on the original document, select the text layer and go to filter>distort>displace. It asks you to rasterize the text, select OK. When the displace window pops up, change horizontal and vertical scale to 20 and click OK.

A "choose displacement map" window appears. Select the displace.psd we just created. Back in the layers palette change the blend mode of the text layer to hard light and set the opacity to about 70% and your finished.

For a more weathered effect, set the blend mode to overlay and adjust the opacity to about 60%.

Ripped Paper Effect

Create a new document what ever size you desire im going to be using a canvas size of 600 x 250 pixels. Double click your background layer to unlock it, unlocking the layer will make it editable. Add a simple gradient overlay to your background layer, im going for a greeny gradient.

Create a new layer above your background layer and label it "grey canvas" fill it with the color #E1E1E1. Now goto "filter > noise > add noise" use the settings below.

Select the lasso tool and randomly create a hole in the grey canvas.

Hit the delete key once the selection has been made then add this layer style to the "grey canvas" layer.

You should have something like this.

Create a new layer above your grey canvas layer called "white canvas layer". Fill the canvas with the color white, select the lasso tool once again and randomly draw another hole, i might help if you lower the opacity abit as you want it rougly the same shape but alittle bit bigger. Ive set my opacity to 35%.

Hit the delete key once the selection has been made then set opacity back to 100% then add this drop shadow using the settings below.

You should have something like this.

Now go here and download the paper texture. Once downloaded add it to a layer above the white canvas layer. With the magic wand tool select the hole you previously cut on the white canvas layer, select the paper texture layer and hit delete. Set paper texture layer opacity to 40%.

Next select the rectangular marquee tool and create a small rectangle roughly the same height as your ripped hole, fill with the color white. With the lasso tool just randomly cut around the edges of the rectangle once a complete selection has been made goto "select > inverse" then hit the delete key, heres mine shown in red.

Now add these layer styles also label your layer "torn paper".

Slighty angle your torn paper layer using the free transform layer (CTRL - T). You should have something like this.

Underneath your torn paper layer create a circle using the elliptical marquee tool, fill with the color black. Goto "filter > blur > guassian blur" blur by 7 pixels and set layer opacity to 15%.

You should have something like this.

Thats it, now add something between your background layer and grey canvas layer.

Magic Talisman

1. Create a new black (or dark colored) 1024x768 image. Create a new layer. On this second layer, use the ellipse tool and hold the shift-key to draw a circle. Make sure that the circle is using paths so it will not color in the circle.

2. You now have a path outline of a circle. Select the pen tool , right-click on the canvas and from the pop-up menu, select "Stroke Path." This will outline your path using whatever brush and color you have selected. I would recommend using the hard round brush at 3 pixels. Right-click and select delete path.

3. Still using the pen tool , select the Custom shape tool and choose a shape. I chose the bulls eye. Using whatever shape you selected, place it somewhere inside the circle. The select "Stroke Path" as we did before and delete the path.

4. Now use the line tool to make your design a bit more elaborate and original. Use a slightly smaller pixel width than before, like 2 pixels. Duplicate the layer. Select the bottom layer and go Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur 4 pixels. With the top layer selected, go Layer > Merge Down.

5. Duplicated the merged design layer and select the lower layer and go Filter > Distort > Ripple. Select a large ripple or about 750%. Now Filter> Blur > Radial Blur and make sure you select Zoom and set the amount to 100. Duplicate that layer and set the upper distorted layer to Vivid light. Merge all the layers except the black background.

6. Use the Move tool on your design layer and go Edit > Transform > Distort. Move about the circle until you have it in your desired position.

7. As a final touch, duplicate the layer and set the lower layer to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur 8 pixels. Set the upper layer to Overlay and go Layer > Flatten Image. Finally, use the Dodge tool at a brush size of 50 pixels and an exposure of 90% to highlight areas and emphasize the glow. You now have a kick-ass surface for any character to stand or sit on!