July, 2008
In this tutorial we will show you how to create smoke in Photoshop CS3.
Start a new document with the following settings:

This is how the new document will look like (remember that the background must be black):

Then, create a new Layer and call it "smoke":

After that, select the Brush Tool and press F5.
Now select the following settings for your brush:

Also add this settings, at the dynamic brush tip shape:

Then, draw a white line:

After doing so, go to: "Filter/liquify ".

The liquify window will appear.
From it, select the following settings:

After that, select the "Turbulence Tool".
Having that tool selected start liquifying the white line:

This is how its getting to look like:

Then, you must duplicate the smoke layer at least 4 times so you can have more smoke lines:

As soon as you start duplicating the layers you must repeat the Filter/Liquify process.
You must do this with each new "smoke" layer you duplicate.

See the changes:

Now, we have a nice smoke.
You can make more layers and even paint some of the smoke lines.

Have fun...and a cup of coffee. =)
Download the original source files from this tutorial in Zip format Here
Copyright (c) 2008, Beatriz Mariniello, All Rights Reserved