Hey everyone, in this tutorial we will be trying to teach you how to create and enhance a massive explosion in a wallpaper, signature or whatever else you’re making. The tutorial is divided into a few sections,

• Creating and enhancing the Explosion
• Adding Lighting into the canvas
• Fixing / Removing errors or bad looking sections

We will start with a Resistance 2 wallpaper found on Gamewallpapers. I’ve added a few animated .GIF files to illustrate some steps.

Please do not copy or redistribute this tutorial whatsoever.

The outcome of this tutorial:

This is the wallpaper (resized to 65%) that we will be starting with. Notice how this wallpaper already has a bright light source:

Creating and enhancing an explosion:

1. First, select your brush tool, and grab a soft brush. We’re going to use the orange color #F67228 to create the base of the explosion.

2. Start brushing all around the area where you would like the explosion to happen. This looks best when it’s around a bright light source. Don’t worry if you brush over any of the characters on the foreground or other details, we will repair this later.

3. Create a new Layer. Grab a lighter orange color, we used #FFC06E, to brush inside of the base explosion we’ve created in step 2. Make sure you brushing makes sense, brush outwards into the direction of the explosion.

4. Create another new layer. Now use a white brush with a smaller size to brush near the core of your explosion. Once again, brush outwards out of the explosion:

5. create a new layer, grab a darker color orange, and brush a little at the end of the flames. The color we’ve used was #DE5B1F”

6. We’re going to blend these flames into eachother using the smudge tool and a chalk brush. I’ve used the default Photoshop brush set, so you should normallyhave these Chalk brushes. Select the Smudge Tool:

Then click onto the brushes, and select a Chalk Brush (or atleast I believe it’s a chalk brush):

7. Create a new layer, and Apply the image (Image > Apply Image). Now, start smudging the canvas to create an exploding effect. Try using the directions of an explosion like I’ve done:

Our result of the smudging (don’t worry if you still see all of the brushing at this point, we’re going to fix this in the following steps):

8. Now grab the Clone Stamp Tool,

and hold ALT to define a source point. Select a point in the center if your lightsource with some detail:

9. Now start tapping a few times on top of the flames. Define a new source point every so often to create some different detail:

The outcome of our clone stamp tooling at this point:

10. Grab the Smudge tool again with the same Chalk brush, and start smudging into the flames:

our outcome:

11. Now, make a new layer, and apply the image (Image > Apply Image). Set this layers blending mode to Multiply, and reduce the opacity to reduce its strength slightly. We’ve set it to 54%:

Outcome of setting the layer to multiply:

12. We’re going to use Layer Masks to only show a small section of the Multiply layer (If you want a more detailed explanation on layer masks, check out this tutorial). While you have the multiply layer selected, go to Layer > Layer Mask > and select Hide All.

13. Click on th elayer mask in your layer panel, and use a white brush to brush slightly into the explosion. This will reveal the layer we’ve just hidden:

Shown below is the selection of the parts where we’ve brushed to enhance the explosions color:

14. We’re going to fix the section inside the explosion which looks kind of odd at this point. Smudging this a little will fix this. Here’s an animation to illustrate what we’ve changed:

15. Time to fix the characters on the foreground that we’ve brushed over. Duplicate the original image ( Right Click > Duplicate Layer) and move this on top:

16. Now create another layer mask like we did in step 12, and hide everything. Then with a small white brush, brush into the section that you would like to repair. Below is an image showing the selection of the area that we fixed:

Result of the characters on the foreground fixed:

Adding Lighting

17. We will be adding extra lighting to enhance the realistic feel. Zoom in, and grab a small white brush. Brush slightly across the edges of our characters where lighting would seem logical:

18. Now set this layers blending mode to Soft Light or Overlay depending on how strong you want the lighting to be. Reduce the opacity a little if it looks too strong. We’ve kept the opacity at 100% and used blending mode Overlay:

19. We’re going to blur the outlines of the explosion. Create a new layer, and apply the image (Image > Apply Image) and go to Filter > Blur > Motion Blur, and set the angle to 0. Set the distance to about 15 to 25. Our settings:

Result of this motion blur:

20. Now add a layer mask (Layer > Layer Mask > Hide All), and brush a little around the edges of our flames to unhide some of the blurred parts.

The result of our motion blur layer:

21. Grab a large brush, and brush with a dark color around our focal point. This is to add some extra lighting around the explosion:

22. Set this layers Opacity to about 30%, our result after fixing the lighting:

Fixing / Removing details

We’re going to remove the character near the explosion, because it just doesn’t make sense for him to be there. Here’s an animation to illustrate what we’re going to do be doing in the following steps:

23. Zoom into the canvas, and hold alt to define a point. Then, start brushing over the character:

Keep brushing and defining new areas to brush trough.

After removing the character from the canvas, it looks kind of odd.

24. Brush a little on top of the fire and in the air, and smudge it slightly to fix the background:

Finnishing Touches

25. We’re going to add the final finnishing touches. Brush over areas with a soft white brush, and set its blending mode to Overlay. You can reduce the opacity a little if it appears too strong.

The result after changing the blending mode an opacity:

26. Apply the image on a new layer, and sharpen either with the sharpen tool, or Filter > Sharpen > Sharpen. This gives us our final result:

We hope you’ve enjoyed this tutorial. Premium members will be able to download the PSD of this file and the stock in the premium member section. Enjoy!