How to Make Photoshop Draw the Fires of Hell and Find the Virgin Mary

       This is a cool trick in Photoshop that I got from www.n-sane.net. They have a number of really great things over there, but we'll start with this one. This is all pretty easy, but to make it even easier, I'm going to show you how to create a Photoshop Action, so that you can activate this process with simple combination of buttons. Again, I am not the author of this effect, I am just passing it on.

       Find the Virgin Mary? This effect creates random flamelike images which can sometimes suggest hidden forms. For example- and a lot of people don't even see this- in the image above, I see what looks like a poodle's face, head on, on the left side of the images. Maybe you'll be lucky enough to generate the image of some religious figure, and then you can somehow sell prints of it on Ebay to the gullible masses.

1. Open up a new document" it can be any size, but let's try 5x5 inches@200dpi, in RGB mode, with a transparent background.
   
2. Go Window--> Actions, to pull up the Actions Tableau.
   
3. Select a Folder in the Actions Menu(this is where the new action will be saved- mine is just called Set 1). Click on the arrow in the upper right corner of the Actions Tableau to bring up the menu. Select "New Action." When the submenu pops up, name your new action(here, I called it Hell Fire) and assign it a key combination(I picked SHIFT-F2). When you are done, press RECORD, and you're ready to begin.
   
   
   
   
4. Your Photoshop Action is in "record" mode now, so steps you take are being filed away, so that we can repeat this process at will. Anyway, press the D-key. What this does is reset your swatches to default colors- that is, the foreground and background colors become black and white, respectively.
5. Go Filter--> Render--> Clouds. You'll get this:
   
6. Go Filter--> Render--> Difference Clouds. Now, we want to repeat this step 3 more times, so press APPLE-F(For Mac) or CTRL-F(for PC users) 3 times. It doesn't really have to be 3, but we're setting up the colors(the grey blobby cloud things you see) so that they'll create interesting combinations for the end result. Anyway, you should have something like this:
   
7. Go Filter--> Render--> Lighting Effects. Once the tableau pops up, set the style as Flashlight and hit OK.
   
8. Here is the result:
   
9. Now, go Filter--> Render--> Lighting Effects, and select/change the following items:
   • Style: Blue Omni
   • Intensity: 100
   • Gloss: 100
   • Material: 100
   • Exposure: 100
   • Ambience: 50
   
   
10. Here's what you should have so far- and, for the record, I think it looks cool, as is. Kind of this neato nebula thing.
    
11. Press APPLE-I(for Mac) or CTRL-I(for PC users). You could also go Image--> Adjustments--> Invert, but how fun is that? Anyway, here's what you get:
    
12. Here's where we make the magic happen. Go Filter--> Distort--> Polar Coordinates. Once inside the Polar Coordinates menu, select Polar to Rectangular and hit OK. Mmmm.
    
13. Now, we're just gonna intensify it a bit: Go Layer--> Duplicate Layer, Click OK. Once the new layer is in, go to your Layers Tableau and set the Blending Mode(where it starts off saying Normal) of the new layer to Overlay and the Opacity to 50%
    
14. Press APPLE-E(Mac) or CTRL-E(PC) to merge and flatten the image and we're done with the effect.
15. On the Actions Tableau, hit STOP(the square on the lower left).
    
16. In the Actions Tableau, scroll up to the top folder of where you action was just recorded, and click on that folder to select it. In the image, my folder is just called Set 1. With this selected, hit the arrow in the upper right of the tableau again, and go down the menu that pops up and select Save Actions. A Save menu will pop up, with the name of your folder, Hit SAVE.
17. Okay, you're done! Now, the neat thing is, is that this effect makes random patterns, so the fire is different every time. You can open a new document and hit your action shortcut keys(SHIFT-F2, for me) and wait- your new view of hell will appear in moments. If you're just scanning through variations, looking for interesting things(like faces or the Virgin Mary in the fire), then just hit your shortcut keys and watch. Repeat as many times as necessary. I've gotten some cool results. Play around with the resolution. At lower dpi- like 72, you just get raging flames, but at 300dpi- you get really detailed hellish figures. Have fun!

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