HI ALL.... Not sure if this has been covered in this forum... I am trying to make dust clouds. Like the ones you would see if something heavy hit the ground, or some one scooting across the dirty ground. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks, James (timefighter)

use the clouds filter on a separate layer, set to screen mode to get rid of the black/dark areas then rub back the whole until you get just the bits you want with the eraser tool? - then shift the bits around, cut'n'paste to fit etc...

or do dollops of colour on a new layer and then use the smudge tool to fit and shape....!

Thanks Sean......I will try that.

The second blend mode (under 'normal'), which I think is called 'dissolve', does nice things with blurred layers, making specs. Especially when you combine it with an empty layer, on larger documents. I am afraid I am not that clear: - paint some dust with an airbrush - set the layer to 'dissolve' (or similar) - make a new empty layer - click the 'chain' thing - combine those layers - blur the resulting tiny dots - play around with the settings for that particular layer - do it with more layers in different colors, add noise, blur, smudge, etc. etc. I had some succes creating lots of dots without actually ruining my Wacom tablet. I hope this helps!

Thanks

Timefighter, You can also make a new layer, do a cloud filter on it. Reduce the opacity so you can see through to your main picutre. Then what I do is use a lasso, select where I want the dust or smoke to be. Feather the selection like 8 or 10 or however many pixels works for you. Then invert the selection and hit delete to remove all the 'smoke' except for what you selected. Mess around with opacity, and it looks pretty good. Maybe combining that with the others' ideas would look groovy.