Hi, Thank you for purchasing 'PyroClasm - Photoshop Actions' on Graphicriver. This guide will cover the installation and basic usage of the package. For a detailed walkthourgh about basics and techniques for customization to use after the action's playback, please watch this video tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBr2TOEmGaE Both the guide and the video tutorial are impotant. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This Action has been tested on Photoshop CS3, CS4, CS5, CS6, CC+, English Version ONLY. If you’re using Photoshop in another language This Video shows how to change it temporarily: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJAiu5W2gLE --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------ INSTALLATION ------------ 1. Open Photoshop go to menu 'Window' then select 'Actions', the Actions panel will open. 2. On the actions panel click the arrow icon at the top-right corner, when the drop down menu opens select 'Load Action'. Select the action file 'PyroClasm - Photoshop Actions'. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------- BEFORE PLAYING THE ACTION ------------------------- 1. Make sure your image is in RGB 8 bit color mode. 2. You're on the English version of Photoshop. 3. Your image has a good resolution, use images between 2000-5000 pixels (at least one of the axes should be in this range). When using low resolution images (less than 1500 px), it is possible that the 'Rock Debris' effect will come out clearly bugged. In this case make the resolution of the image bigger and playback the action again. 4. Make sure that the option 'Add "copy" to Copied Layers and Groups' is active. To do it click on the arrow icon on the top-right corner of the layers panel, then select 'Panel Option', select the option and click OK. 5. (ONLY FOR PHOTOSHOP CC!) Go to top menu 'Edit', then select 'Preferences' and then 'General'. Make sure that the option 'Always create smart objects when placing' is active. 6. Make sure that there's enough background space around the masked area for the effect you want to make. If you need more space use the Crop Tool (C on the keyboard), scale the image as needed and press Enter on the keyboard --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------- HOW TO USE THE ACTION --------------------- 1. Open an image to work with in Photoshop. 2. Make sure that the image's layer is locked and it's set as 'Background'. To set a layer as Background go to menu 'Layers' -> 'New' -> 'Background from Layer' 3. Create a new layer above the Background layer and call it 'mask'. The name MUST be lowercase. 4. Select the mask layer and brush over the interested area of the image below. For better results use a hard or slightly soft brush. You can use your preferred method to make this mask (wand tools, magnetic lasso, pen tool...) just make sure at the end that you have a nice mask of the image and the rest of the layer has transparency. 5. Before playing the action make sure to have only two layers on your file 'mask' and 'Background'. 6. Open the Actions panel. Select one of the Pyroclasm actions and click play! try the 'UP' action the first time. The other 3 actions are clones of the UP action, the only difference is that the others will apply a rotation to the image, apply the UP action and then will rotate back to the original state. 7. At the beginning of the playback a message will appear asking to place the included .PSD file 'Pyroclasm - Fire FX Bundle'. Click continue, find the file in the download folder and load it. Now move and scale the image to position it. All the other fire clips will be positioned according to the position of this first one, it's better if you don't rotate it and don't make it too much big or small. Just match the overall position and size of the area of interest, after the action's playback you'll be able to manually reposition each fire effect. Press Enter on the keyboard to place the image. IMPORTANT! Make sure that the PSD bundle you're placing was not changed after the download. If for example you accidentaly delete a layer in the bundle and save it, the playback of the action with that bundle will not work. In this case you'll have to download the .zip again from Graphicriver. If you want to modify the bundle, save a copy first. 8. The playback will take about 6 minutes and it will generate many graphic elements that can be tweaked and combined to achieve many different results. If during the playback the message 'Smart filters stacked on top of this layer will not preview...' appears, you can check the 'Don't show again' option and click OK, the action will continue with the playback. ONLY FOR CS3, CS4, CS5! During the action's playback the Layers Styles panel will open several times, click OK each time to make the action continue. 9. When the playback finishes the message 'Render Completed' will appear, click 'Continue'. There will be many opened groups and layer styles in the layers panel and it'll look messy, to make a quick re-organization hold ALT (or OPTION on Mac) and click the arrow of the main group 'PYROCLASM - Output', this will close the group, then release ALT. If you open again the group normally all the layers and groups will be reorganized. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------- LAYERS STRUCTURE ---------------- Inside the main 'Pyroclasm' there are different sub-groups that can be recognized by their color. List of sub-groups, starting from bottom: - BG (Background) - BG Gradients - BG Fire - FG (Foreground, masked area) - FG FX - FG Fire - Overlay FX - Post FX Unhide each sub-group starting from the bottom to see what each one does. Here is a quick description of each sub-group and how it can be modified, it starts from the bottom, but there's not a rule of where to start the customization, it really depends on what you want to achieve. [BG - Background] This is the main black background, should always stay visible [BG Gradients] Here you can find some gradient effects to add to the base background, Unhide one at a time and choose your favourite. You can modify the opacity to make it more or less visible, or also modify the layer style gradient overlay. [BG FIRE] Here you can find the fire effects for the background, extracted from the PSD bundle. You can move, rotate, scale and combine to make them match with your image. Try also different blending modes like Screen and Linear Dodge. If you're combining many of these layers and overlapping them, they will work great in lighten blending mode, but will probably be overexposed if you set all of them at the same time to Linear Dodge or Screen. You can use the mask layers of each of these effect but also all the other pyroclasm effects, to hide parts of it. To do it select the mask channel, then select a black brush and paint over the area you want to hide. A black Brush will hide parts of a layer and a white brush will reveal them. [FG - Foreground] 'FG Main' is the main foreground, above this there are 3 correction layers, use the opacity parameter of these layers to make them more or less visible. 'Contrast' will change the contrast of the image, 'Fire Gradient' will make the foreground more or less red, 'White recover' will let you recover overexposed areas of the foreground. [FG FX] Inside this group you'll find many effects applyied to the foreground organized in groups. Starting from the bottom there is 'FG Heat Effect', use a white brush on the mask channel to reveal parts of this layer, use the opacity to make it more or less visible. Next there's the 'Motion Blur Effect', also here you can use the mask channel of these layers and also modufy the opacity of the layers inside the group. Try also the blending modes lighten, screen, color dodge. Then there's the 'Glows' group, also here you can modify the opacity of the 4 glow layers. The first 3 glow have layers styles that con be modified. In the Burn effect group you'll find 2 different burn effects, after the playback only the second one is visible, you can choose wich one to use one of them or combine them. As you can see the two burn effects have a fractal pattern in the mask channel that decide theyr visibility, use the brush with black or white color to customize this mask. You can also modify opacity of each layer of the effect. Last effect of FG FX is the 'Small Contour Flames' group, you can modify the opacity of these layers, use the mask channel and try different blending modes like screen, color dodge, linea dodge. [FG FIRE] Here you can find some clips extracted from the bundle dedicated to the foreground. The layers inside the group are not visible after the playback, because you'll need to position them manually, this will give that extra detail and custom look that will make your image stand out. Unhide them one a time to see them all and choose your favourites. Now move, rotate and scale them one at a time and position them where they fit the best. Try to give a sense of dynamism to the combination of all the effects. [OVERLAY FX] Here you can find the 'Rock Debris' and 'Ember' effects, the usage is very similar to all the other effects. You can use the mask channel, modify opacity and blending mode (try screen, linear dodge) of the Ember layers. Also for the Rock Debris layers you can modfy the mask channel to hide or reveal some of them. [POST FX] Here you can find some adjustments layers that blend all the elements togheter. Use the opacity parameter on 'Red Gradient', 'Grain' and 'Global Contrast' to make them more or less visible. Global Hue/Saturation is a simple adjustment layer double click it's icon to change the parameters. Unhide 'Global Tint' if you wan to apply an overall color to the image, also here you can use the mask channel to make the effect more or less visible. ! Please WATCH THE VIDEO TUTORIAL for a better demonstration of this basic steps and also a walkthrough of customization techniques. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you need any further help please contact me through my profile page on Graphicriver: http://graphicriver.net/user/BlackNull Check also my other products at this link: http://graphicriver.net/user/BlackNull/portfolio --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Please don't forget to rate this product in your download section if you like it! Thank you for the support, BlackNull