Word from smoke

I'm on the lit. mag at our school and one of the ideas for a cover was to have the title (applause) appear to be made of smoke. Here's my attempt at this. I don't know for sure if we're going to use it or not so this is sort of a rough draft, and I am aware that the edges of the text look too sharp in some areas. Anyways, here it is:

Smoke

Thanks for any replies or tips.

Anyone know a good smoke technique?

well....thats actually better than what i imagined. Good job.

text look too sharp in some areas

true......but it also looks too blurry in some areas...meaning you want to text to be readable. Your going to have to keep playing to find that fine line between blurry and sharp.

For tips: Add noise! The texture of smoke is not smooth...its kinda grainy and rough so noise would help. I would go monochromatic cause its smoke....even though color would be more realistic. Also add noise on a new layer......and SCALE it. You want larger noise...like little puffs of smoke almost. Scale it about 3x the usual size.

Also maybe break up some of those semi-straight lines. Smoke is usually round/swirl shapes (for example the line coming of the right side of the U ).

It'll be rough to do in Photoshop as opposed to 3D software with particle effects, but if you keep messing with it you should get something really good. You're on the right track as it is so...keep workin'!