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Preparations:
We will use an image of the gorgeous Miss Mosh, photographed by Mjranum and Deserted City from fl8us Stock.
Click here to download Miss Mosh image.
Click here to download the city image.
All rights of these resources belong to their respective owners.
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Step 1 – Setting Up Background:
Create a document of size 750 by 550px and place the city image at the center of it.
Create a new Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer and check on Colorize. Key in 0 for Hue, 15 for Saturation and 0 for Lightness.
Create a new Levels Adjustment Layer and key in value 10, 0.92, 255.
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Step 2 – Adding Dark Clouds:
Create a new layer above the rest.
Set foreground color to #FFFFFF and background to #000000. Go to Filter > Render > Clouds.
Set the Blend Mode of this layer to Multiply.
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Step 3 – Apply Liquify Effect:
Select the city layer and go to Filter > Liquify.
Pick the Bloat tool and set its size to 600, density to 50, pressure to 50, rate to 80 and turbulent jitter to 50.
Click once or twice at the center of the city.
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Step 4 – Cropping the Model:
Extract Miss Mosh out of the background and position her at the center of the bloated city.
You may wish to check out this post for different methods of extraction.
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Step 5 – Adding Shadow:
Duplicate the Miss Mosh layer. Go to Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation and set its Lightness to 0.
Rearrange this duplicated layer to be under the original Miss Mosh.
Go to Filter > Gaussian Blur with 3px and rescale to the shape as shown in the diagram.
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Step 6a – Adding Nuclear Wave:
Create a new layer between Miss Mosh and the city layer.
Use Ellipse tool to draw a circular path. Go to Edit > Transform Path > Rotate to turn the path at 45 degrees.
Use Direct Selection tool to adjust the path as shown in the diagram.
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Step 6b – Adding Nuclear Wave:
Select the layer created in Step 6a and go to Filter > Render > Clouds.
Go to Filter > Liquify. With the same settings in Step 3, left-click and hold on at the center of the clouds. Release the mouse when you got something similar to the left.
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Step 6c – Adding Nuclear Wave:
Go to Path tab to find the path you created earlier at Step 6a.
Ctrl+left click on the path to load selection. Back to Layers tab, select the bloated clouds and set a layer mask with the selection.
Using a Soft Brush tool with size 300 and color #000000, paint the bottom border of layer mask.
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Step 6d – Adding Nuclear Wave:
Set the Blend Mode of this layer to Soft Light.
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Step 7 – Adding Highlights:
Create a new layer on top of the bloated clouds created in Step 6.
Repeat Step 6a to 6d on this new layer.
Set the Blend Mode to Color Dodge. You may go to Image > Adjustments > Auto Levels to enhance the highlights.
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Step 8 – Adding Color:
Go to Path tab and load selection of the path again.
Create a new layer above the bloated clouds and fill the selection with #7197C3. Create a layer mask for this layer and paint the center of the mask with #000000 as shown on left.
Set the Blend Mode to Linear Dodge.
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Step 9 – Adding Flare:
Duplicate Miss Mosh layer and go to Filter > Blur > Radial Blur. Set the Method to Zoom and Amount to 100.
Set the Blend Mode of this layer to Linear Dodge.
Duplicate this layer for another two times to achieve a brighter flare.
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Step 10a – Adding Burst:
Create a new layer above the rest.
Draw bursting shapes with Pen tool and fill it with #FFFFFF.
Note that the burst starts from within the clothes. So only concentrate on the chest and sleeves area.
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Step 10b – Adding Burst:
Select the bursting shapes and go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur with 5px.
Use Soft Eraser tool of size 100 to fade all ends of the burst.
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Step 10c – Adding Burst:
Use Soft Brush tool with size 100 and color #FFFFFF, paint a dot at the center of the burst.
And you are done! This tutorial took part of Fabio’s Create a Powerful Mental Wave Explosion Effect as reference. Hope you like it.
Click here to view the final image.
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I am Johnson Koh, a graphic and web designer in Singapore. Founded 10Steps.SG in August 2008 with the purpose to share my experiments and interesting design news. 
There are some steps that just do not make sense no matter how I try (and another friend of mine tries). Neither of us were able to reproduce this effect.
Thanks for trying but this is a fail.
Sorry man…
can u put video plz
Nice article thanks for sharing!
wow thank you soooo much ;D
here is the my work i did it with supernatural =)
http://i48.tinypic.com/2vwegbb.jpg
It’s missing broken windows ect, for an explosion. Really cool effect though, good work.
Sorry unable to complete this as i cant select any of the image adjustments or filters, i followed everything (well tried to) these so called instructions say, but it will NOT let me select the filters etc as they are greyed out!!!
Well, no surprise if you don’t have the plugins
sxs
Good tutorial thanks
It kinda just look like a shockwave. Not a nuclear explosion.
hi johnson i’m facing some problem here..
first,i’m using ps 7.0
seem that i can’t find some options like density,rate and turbulent jitter in step 3.turbulent jitter options is available,but it’s unselectable.why?
and in step 6a,i had problem because the circle i made will be filled with clouds when i click filter-render-clouds
options..and to make circle and adjusting the path using direct selection tools is very-very hard…
i’d tried for about 4 days,still stuck at step 3 and 6..
please help me…i love this tutorial..
Same problems I’m having.
Good luck to you.
Im stuck at step 6. how do you do this?
Use Ellipse tool to draw a circular path. Go to Edit > Transform Path > Rotate to turn the path at 45 degrees.
Use Direct Selection tool to adjust the path as shown in the diagram.
Can you explain deeper? thanks!
Hi Brendan, I’m using CS3. Do you have Convert Point tool?
thanks for this but what version of photoshop are you using? i’m using cs2 and there is only one step i’m having problems with and thats making the path in step 6
This is more like a force field tutorial.
Glad you guys like it
wow… this is the effects i want.. thanks .. i enjoy it..
It’s really awesome Johnson!
I can imagine lots of simple graphics into funky effects.
I want same effects to convert into flash file.
Thanks for your encouragement, Santiago!
/
I’m getting really into photoshop and that’s thanks to the
fact that the first tutorials I was able to complete are yours,
Great job!
Keep it Up!!!!!
Thanks everyone for the kind words
@Fak: I’m sorry that it does not meet your expectation this round. Will provide better stuff next time!
@Paulo: Thanks for mentioning the reference.
i’ve seen the other tutorial at PSDTUTS. frankly speaking this one is easier to follow although the other got a better result.
and johnson is not copying i can say at least i can see a referencing done at Step 10c.
however i found a new site that copied 100% from johnson’s method
http://www.comeandphotoshop.com/making-a-exploding-hero/
Sorry but that isnt a nuclear explocion. And is a copy of another tutorial.
i like thes
Nice tutorial. Good job.
First time here, thanks for sharing. nice job.
Hi Shamsul, I agree with you myself
Fabio (in Abduzeedo) is one of my favorite digital artist too.
I will work towards a better work next time. Thanks!
ive seen something like this before…
but the other tutorial had better outcome
Not so good honestly, not very explosiony.
Thats realy bad
wow thats so fucking gay you should shoot yourself
Thanks everyone!
Hi uber brown, Yup. This tutorial took part of Fabio’s “Create a Powerful Mental Wave Explosion Effect” as reference.
reminds of the tutorial at PSDTUTS
While the effect is pretty slick, it honestly looks more like a super power effect than a nuclear explosion. But pretty slick anyway
great tutorial. I liked it a lot. Never thought of using something like this but it is a cool result anyway.
Hey, I have tried to create that figure in two days and I never succeeded. I wonder if you can describe simpler? And send to me. Thanks (sul15_l@yahoo.com.)
Thanks alot Dainis!
First time looked over Your site – nice tuts You got here! Keep up, mate! Subscribed!
Thanks Oyjorn
Very nice!! Thanks!