Basic Fire in 10 Steps

Today we are going to make the ever-so-popular flames. But this works only for small images: avatars, small signs, etc. Start with a 100x100 document. Background doesn't matter.

Fill with black.

Take a brush (I used 19px) and brush some red on the bottom. Make it wavy so your flames don't look so monotone.

Go to the Image>Flip Canvas>90 CW.

Apply the wind filter. (Tick from the one left) two or three times. For this one, I applied it three times.
Don't flip back just yet!

Create a new layer, fill it with black, and brush some yellow on there. Make it wavy but shorter than the red. Do you see what's next?

That's right! Wind it! Just press Ctrl+F to apply Wind since you didn't use any other filters. If you applied the Wind filter twice to your red layer, then apply it once here. Three times on the red layer, two times here and so on so forth. But it looks cheesy. Let's change that.

Set your top layer to Lighten, Screen, or Linear Dodge, no difference really. I used the latter. Still looks corny. Breathe some life into it!

Apply Ripple
(Filter-->Distort-->Ripple) to both layers (Don't merge!) Use the default settings. Now you can merge layers (Ctrl+E) Flip back to an upright position. I don't know about you, but my fire looks strongly. The next part is optional.

Choose the blur tool and set the exposure to 26%. Apply a little blur and you're YIM or MSN icon!