Attention Photoshop gurus: How was this done?

[macaddict23]

This is currently featured on iStockphoto: http://istockphoto.com/design_spotlight_details.php?ID=24326

How did the designer turn the blue smoke into an opaque one in the final design?

 

[opeter]

He aded the smoke to a new layer, desaturated it and choosed screen, overlay or something similar.

It can also be, that he used more copys of the same layer, so that the intensity stays the way it is now. Also, he used a mask (or more) layer(s).

Anyway, it cannot be achived in 1 step.

 

[stainlessliquid]

invert, desaturate, layer=screen, duplicate layer, done

 

[millar876]

invert, desaturate, layer=screen, duplicate layer, done

yeah, like he said.

 

[Kwill]

Or pasted smoke image into layer mask/alpha channel.