Arctic Blast Effect

Step 1

Create a new document in photoshop of any size, I"m suing 500x500 for this tutorial. Press 'D' on your keyboard to reset your colors, and then press 'X' on your keyboard to reverse the foreground and background colors

Step 2

Go to "Filter->Render->Clouds"

Then go to "Filter->Render->Difference Clouds".

Press Ctrl + F on your keyboard 2 or 3 times to repeat the "Difference Clouds" filter.

Result:

Step 3

Go to "Filter->Artistic->Rough Pastels, and apply the following settings:

Result:

Step 4

Go to "Filter->Brush Strokes->Accented Edges" and apply the following settings:

Result:

Step 5

Go to "Filter->Distort->Polar Coordinates" and apply the following settings:

Result:

Step 6

Go to "Filter->Stylize->Wind Method" and apply the following settings:

Press Ctrl + F on your keyboard three times to repeat the "Wind" filter three more times.

Result:

Step 7

Go to "Filter->Distort->Polar Coordinates" and apply the following settings:

Result:

Step 8

Press Ctrl + U on your keyboard to bring up the Hue/Saturation tool and apply the following settings:

Be sure to check the "colorize" box

Result:

Step 9

Duplicate the layer and set the duplicated layer's blending mode to overlay with an opacity of 50 percent.

Press Ctrl + J on your keyboard to duplicate this layer.

Now change the blending mode of this layer to "Overlay" and drop the opacity down to 50 percent:

This should bring out some of the colors and highlight the piece a bit more.

Result:

Step 10

Finally go to "Filter->Blur->Gaussian Blur" and apply the following settings:

This completes the tutorial, try adding some text, or a game render to the piece to really create a nice looking header background, or forum signature.

Here is how mine ended up after tweaking with some of the settings: