[j sotelo]

First make a New Document any size you wish fill it wit black and
Create a New Transparent Layer this is the one you will be working on.
(if you wish to make the creation of the New Doc. an action it will save you a lot of time
if you plan on playing with this)


Top Picture
Now grab your lasso tool or your polygonal lasso, your choice. and make an abstract shape that looks like this.
(you will play with different shapes as you get the hang of it)

fill it with gray
(later you will learn to fill it with a gradient and also with different colors)

Press ctrl+D to deselect

Bottom Picture
Now grab your Dodge Tool and set the range to highlight and go around the abstract and on the points
Next grab your Burn Tool and just go over the abstract where you see fit




(The next steps I recommend you make an action for it will make it soooo much easier)

This is half the effect that turns it into smoke. Filter/Distort/Wave make these settings




After you applied the wave filter go to
Edit/Fade Wave
and lower the opacity to 50%

(if you made the action for these two steps just go back and press play as many times until
you feel it looks right)

if you didnt make the action just repeat the these two steps


now the last step is make a copy of the smoke layer set it to Overlay
go back to the first smoke layer and give it a bit of gaussian Blur
merge the two smoke layers only

Bottom Picture
(you can also try pressing Ctrl+I to invert after you merged the two smoke layers)

and there you are

It was quick so I hope you understand it..

Play with it and have fun !!!!

[Steve]

Simple when you know how

Thanks for the tutorial