shooting flames? How to select?

[York]

Hi,
I am going to make a composition-picture where i want to put flames on it.

The picture will be a road, where the effect i want is something as a 'line of fire' on the road, where a car left marks (sorry for bad english) with his tires. I have two possibilities:

1/ drawing flames in cs, but it's a hires-pic, so you'll see it it's (almost) realistic (not an option so).

2/ making flames with gazoline, make picture of it, cut it and paste it in my picture.

But, if i choose for nr. 2, how can i select the flames? How would you shoot them? Background colour? Should 'blend-if' work?

Pls any suggestions.

Thx,

York

[Swampy]

Re: shooting flames? How to select?

I used Eye Candy's fire filter on this image. It sure is a time saver.

[Dave.Cox]

Re: shooting flames? How to select?

Something like this maybe? It needs to be refined a bit, but not hard to do.

Find a photo with flames, preferably a night scene. Use Blend if Gray in the blending options of the layer styles. Pull those four arrows around to adjust the selection. Press Alt, and pull to separate the arrows to refine your selection. Cut out the flames you like, and copy it to the road.

Add a shadow under the flames. I used two shadow each for this one, one set to hard mix, and one set to linear light. Paint the edges with a soft layer brush on a mask to adjust it to fit the flame.

I did this in a hurry, but with a little work can get it to look more realistic.

[pixelzombie]

Re: shooting flames? How to select?

shoot the flames on a black background so you get a "richer" fire color, if you notice most of the stock images and video footage of fire is against a black background...

[pixelzombie]

Re: shooting flames? How to select?

and btw, be VERY careful with gasoline..it is VERY volatile in comparison to lighter fluid...