My dear dekeOmaniacs, in this week’s free Deke’s Techniques video, Deke revisits an earlier technique (featured in Deke’s Techniques 008) in which he sets glowing type on fire. However, rather than using a carefully masked photograph of actual fire to apply the flames, Deke applies completely pixel-based fire created by Photoshop CC’s new Flame Generator.

The effect begins with this glowing too-hot-to-handle type that Deke created way back in 2011 by applying layer effects to some otherwise cool-to-the-touch text. (If you’d like to create these crispy characters yourself, you can still watch this movie for free at lynda.com.)

After making a copy of the original type in order to make a matching path outline (fire generated by the new filter requires a path to spring from), Deke applies these Photoshop-made flames relatively effortlessly:

For members of lynda.com, Deke’s got an exclusive movie this week in which he shows you how to integrate the text and flames to finalize this effect using blend modes and a bit of masking:

If you’re not a member of lynda.com and you want to watch the follow-up movie (as well as over 350 other Deke’s Techniques episodes, not to mention the rest of the vast lyndaLibrary), you can get a free week’s trial by going to lynda.com/deke.

I’ll admit this approach and the exploitation of the new filter is much quicker and less messy than the original technique that Deke used, and it’s pretty amazing you can get that out of a dialog box. But I have to admit the photographed flames are a bit more evocative. (You can see how Deke integrated these "organic" flames back in Deke’s Techniques 009.)

Which approach sets your graphical hearts ablaze?