Create an image the size of what you need. In this case, we’ll create a 500×500px image, and fill the background red (ff0000) (or any other base color I guess).

Create a yellow (ffff00) shape in the form that you’d like to make your fire. We’ll use a “JT” graphic in this case. Make sure that you size and place it in a way that will leave room for the flames. You don’t have to use a specific shape if you’re just looking for fireballs or something. Make sure the shape is rasterized by right clicking on the layer and clicking “Rasterize Shape” or “Rasterize Type.” Depending on your version of Photoshop and the type of shape you’re using, this may vary.

Use the wave distort function to start working the shape:

• Click Filter > Distort > Wave.
• Set your scale to 20% for both horizontal and vertical.
• Set your wavelength and amplitude to Min: 16 and Max 32.
• Run the wave filter again with the min/max set to 8/16 and 4/8.

This is the part that might take a bit of skill. You can completely skip it, but it doesn’t look as real. You need to work the fire upwards and wisp it a bit with the liquify filter (Filter > Liquify).

Run the wave filter again with min/max at 2/4 four times.

It’s good to do multiple layers in this way if you’re planning on making an object look like it’s burning, because you can but layers in front of and behind the object. You can also use blend modes to get cool effects. Throughout the rest of the tutorial, I’ll speak as if I’m working on a single layer, but the final product at the end of this tutorial was done with two layers.

Run the 2/4 wave filter one more time on the layer(s).

Now the good stuff…

Hide all layers except the background. Set your foreground and background to red(ff0000) and yellow(ffff00) in your color picker.

Render some difference clouds (Filter > Render > Difference Clouds) about 10 times. Make sure you end on red/yellow, not green/black, unless that’s what you want.

Select the layer outline of one of the hidden layer(s) (Cntrl + Click; it doesn’t need to be visible).

Copy the difference cloud pattern with the outline generated by the hidden layer, and paste it to a new layer.

Give the new layer an inner shadow through blending options (right click the layer and click “Blending Options”), but change the blend mode of the shadow to normal and make the shadow color yellow (ffff00). Give it an opacity of 50%. If you’ve created multiple layers of fire, do this for each layer.

Do some cleaning. You can remove the layer with difference clouds (background), as well as the yellow “outline” layer(s).

Rasterize the blend modes of any layers. I’ve found that the easiest way to do this is create a new layer (Layer > New > Layer), place it directly below the layer you want to rasterize the blend modes on and merge them (Click on the higher layer and merge down: Cntrl+E).

Create a layer and fill it red (ff0000). Place the layer UNDER the fire layer(s).

With one of the two blended layers and the red layer visible, select a color range (Select > Color Range), sampling the fully red area. Invert the selection (Select > Inverse) and copy from the “fire” layer and paste the new layer. Do this for all of the fire layers if you’ve done multiples.
Fill the red background with any color you’d like. I think black looks nice (left).

With some experimenting on the blending modes of the layers, and adding the original image shape, I was able to come up with this (right). I put the less “worked” fire image in front of the original shape, and the more “worked” image behind it.

Let me know what you think, but especially let me know if there is a better way to do it.

-JKT