Here’s a quick way to create a brushed metal look. I’m using sort of a bronze color, but it can be used on a grey color (use a darker grey for iron and lighter grey for platinum or aluminum), gold, rust, etc.

First, create a selection. I’m starting with a new document, but it can be used on an existing document, too.

Fill the selection with the base metal color of your choice. If you’re working on an existing image, duplicate the selection to its own layer (you can use Handy Actions to put a selection on its own layer).

Create a new layer, and name it “Noise”. With the selection still active (if you put your selection on its own layer, <Ctrl>/<Cmd>+Click that layer’s thumbnail to select it), fill it with white. Now click Filters>Noise>Add Noise and click on the options Gaussian and Monochromatic. Adjust the slider to get a goodly amount of noise in your selection.

Now, with the noise layer active with the selection active, click Filters>Blur>Motion Blur and adjust the angle to a diagonal that looks good, and adjust the slider to the point that the noise is almost invisible.

Change the Noise layer’s blend mode to Lighten, and adjust the opacity if necessary (you might want to also try Multiply blend mode if you’re working with a lighter colored metal).

My final result is below; I used the “Trim Canvas” action in Handy Actions 3 to cut it down and remove the extra canvas:

It works pretty well on text, too.

For this, I used the Handy Actions pack again, choosing the “Stroke Selection New Layer” action. I made a selection of my text and used the options 4 px, black when the Stroke dialog opened. This placed a 4px stroke, in black, at the top of my layer stack.

Then I ran the same action again, only this time choosing 1px, White. This put a 1px White stroke at the top of my layer stack, resulting in the image below:

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Work. Program. Tweak. Reprogram. Work. I haven’t had any time to do any illustrations for the past several months. I really miss it, and now there’s a new version of Xara out that sort of re-inspired me to get busy on my illustration kick.

Maybe you saw my earlier Robots Attack! series from last year? Or maybe some of my other illustrations? Those are the last real illustrations I’ve done, except for the annual Christmas series. Sigh.

So with the house quiet and the summer happening outside, I popped open Xara and doodled the first thing that came to mind. Lots of bikinis and short shorts in summer, y’know, so…

It’s a cute tushy, but I can’t tell you who it belongs to or Mrs. Graffi will kill me.

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Here’s an interesting contest that a bunch of you might find well worth entering. I know this, because I’ve seen many of your photos, and there are plenty of you out there with some awesome images.

There’s an Amateur and a Pro category (the entry fee for the Amateur side is just $12/image, and there’s a Student rate for the Pro side: $25/image), and 6 different categories:

• Wilderness
• The Human Condition
• Extreme Exploration
• Urban Landscapes
• Snapshots
• Open Series

What, you want to win something? “What’s in it for me?“, you’re saying? Check out these prizes: First, all winning entries will be featured not only in the annual photography issue of National Geographic Traveler magazine (Jan. ‘08), not only will winning photos be exhibited at the New York PhotoPlus Expo (Oct 18-20), not only will photos be loaded to National Geographic Traveler & PDN websites, but there’s some cool other stuff, including cameras, trips & excursions.

I’m thinking I’ll enter a shot from my recent trip - do you think I have a chance of winning?! 

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is finally here! The whole clan - me, my wife & kids, my folks, and my brothers and their families, are headed to Orlando & Disney for a gathering to celebrate my nephew’s graduation.

This will be the first time all of us have been together on vacation since I was a kid, so it’ll be both stressful and fun at the same time.

See you all back here next week - keep an eye on the place while I’m away - I’ll be sure to take lots of pictures.

(Hey, by the way - if you like the font in my little graphic over there, it’s called “Walt-O-Graph“, and you can find it by searching DaFont.com)

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Here’s another old demo from late ‘90. I had released a tape as I usually did as a Christmas card. The tape usually had 10 or 15 songs I had recorded during the year, an underlying theme of sorts, a Christmas tune, and a bunch of artwork.

This is probably the 15th or 20th different recording of this song. I never could get it exactly like I wanted it.  Still, I think it’s my favorite one. I wrote it in ‘87 or so, and this recording is from sometime around 1990 or ‘91. That’s me on guitars, bass & vocals - the old Alesis is providing the drum beat.

Kind of a mellow tune. It’s supposed to sound like a dream, with whispering voices in the background, nice surreal lyrics and a blending of melodies throughout. I especially like the chorus-y guitar and the counter melodies in the background toward the end. The lyrics started out as a poem never finished - .

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Wayback in the day, I was a musician. I played guitar & keyboards, bass when I had to, and was the singer for most bands I was in. I played with several different bands, both cover tunes and original music. It was a blast - !

I was also a recording engineer, and had the obligatory home studio where I wasted many an hour. I generally recorded all my demos first, then presented them to the rest of the guys. I liked to fully flesh out the tunes, most of the time, but sometimes I kept them pretty raw.

I found a bunch of old demos and test recordings the other week, and I’ve been having a great trip down memory lane listening to them again, so I figured some of them were OK enough to post - so here’s the first; just click the Play arrow:

This one is called Lonesome Jake, and was written by a friend of mine (we were in a high school band together, and had fallen out of touch for several years before I caught up with him one day years later.) Turns out we both had kept up with the music thing, and he invited me to play the organ parts for a gig his band had upcoming in Chapel Hill. I liked the song so much, I made my own version of it (believe me, his band’s version rocked a whole lot more than this, and it’s much easier to keep the excitement level high when you’re playing live than it is in the studio, doing take after take after overdub after overdub…).

So this was recorded circa 1990 in my little home demo studio. That’s me on guitars, bass & keyboards. I’m also doing all the vocal parts, and programmed the drums. I like it because it really has a scalding guitar solo towards the end, starting around the 2:10 mark….

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Someone on a forum was looking for an action for Elements that would replicate and fade a bit of text. (this little site was left off the “folks who make actions for Elements users” list mentioned in the posting… ) 

Anyway, I came up with this little ditty, easily adjustable to however you want it to look like.

It leaves seven faded and transformed layers that can be dragged to any location to personalize the look.

Currently it works on a text layer in a new document, but once it runs, it can be easily placed in a different document. To modify the fade direction, simply drag each layer to the desired starting point and space evenly along an imaginary path to the first layer.

Photoshop users, just run it like normal; Photoshop Elements 5 users, add it with your Add-O-Matic; Photoshop Elements 4 and earlier users, manually add it it per this article.

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