Yup - it’s my birthday on Friday! I’m greater-than-or-equal-to 24 years old.

And that’s all I have to say about that. Sign my card, and look for a special birthday something in the shops!

I made the birthday graphic over there with RealDraw - and I haven’t busted that app outta dustballs in months!  It’s still a cool little graphics package, especially with all the add-ons I made for it awhile back-

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This action will work really well on only some images.  I’ll just say that right up front. It can double as a Polaroid-type of exposure, and couple it with the Polaroid action in FunFotoFX, and you’ll have a keeper of an image in no time. I’d save it for those images that you’re about to delete as “not redeemable”, even though the pose and look are perfect.

The image here is definitely not a throw away - it’s a gorgeous portrait I got on Flickr, and I apologize for not noting the photographer (if it’s you, please let me know so I can give credit!)

I ran the Harsh Light action and got the result to the right:

It darkens the darks and lightens the lights without blurring or adding any real noticeable noise (although you can certainly tack another layer on top, fill it with white or black and run the Add Noise filter. Then change the layer’s blend to Soft Light and tweak the opacity to suit) For some images, this is just a subtle enough change to make them keepers.

For added grunge, hipness, groove content or street savvy, though, go ahead an run the action again over the first pass (in other words, run the same action again on the duplicated image, currently named “Harsh Light”). For this version, add noise or, even better, run the Smokin’ Hot or Smokin’ Cool action (those two actions are somewhere in this blog - click the “Downloads” post tag keyword to search for all downloads) on it - you’ll be a cool groove meister in no time.

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Download removed; look for it in Glam Photo 3

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Here’s a deal - just the deal I’ve been waiting for, in fact.

Adobe sent me a little message about upgrading to PS CS3 for just $299. The offer is good for registered Elements users, and it expires on September 16 (hey, that’s me & Ms. Graffi’s anniversary! Hmm, I wonder if she wants Photoshop….)

Check out the details here

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There’s so many different ways to make tape using Elements & Photoshop (just Google “Photoshop tutorial tape” for about 1.8 million ways), so I figured I’d toss out a few ways to make a few slightly different kinds.

Of course, there are two actions in the obligatory download that make them for you. (If you download them, I’m particularly partial to the Clear Tape action over the Sticky Tape action - but the Sticky Tape action is still pretty cool: it adds a rough edge and a bit of noise to the tape for a slightly grittier effect). These actions (and the included Layer Style) are Add-O-Matic friendly - they’ll create their own thumbs after you run them the first time (if you add them with the Add-O!)

The attached image uses both actions - the Clear Tape action is in the upper left and lower right corners, and the Sticky Tape action is used in the upper right corner.

It’s pretty simple to make tape, though, if you want to customize your own -

1. Start with a new document (File>New) and make it about 300 x 300 pixels with a transparent background. You could also just start with a new layer on an existing image.
2. Use the Polygonal Lasso to draw a tape shape selection.
3. Fill the selection with white
4. Change the opacity of the layer to 25% or so.
5. <Ctrl>+click the layer’s thumbnail in the layers palette to make a selection of it again. Add some noise from Filters>Noise>Add Noise… and add as much or as little noise as you’d like. Be sure to check on Uniform and Monochromatic at the bottom of the Noise dialog.
6. Add a bit of either Drop Shadow or Outer Glow (Ok, the Outer Glow layer style I used is in the zip file, too) - but don’t add both or it’ll look silly and all your friends will laugh at you.
7. Finito. Show off to everyone on the web how cool your image looks with tape on it, and mention that Graffi showed you how to do it (unless you used one of those other 1.8 million tutorials - then just tell them that you made it up yourself)

Oh yeah - grab an Add-O-Matic to add the two actions & Layer Style below to Elements 5 with a single drag-n-drop. Then go tell everyone how cool the Add-O is, and that they really can’t live without it. Plus, there’s a lot of free stuff to throw at it here -

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Download removed; look for it in Fun Foto FX 3

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I’mstill going through a bunch of older stuff from the forums over at the main site, and I’m still considering either upgrading the forums, using a different forums package, or getting rid of them altogether.

In the meantime, though, here’s two gradients I used for a few images I made for the old Podcast - a Christmas colors gradient set and the Valentine’s Day video gradient set.

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I’ve been updating, uploading, deleting and rearranging my Flickr galleries.

I added several shots from my trip to Sydney, and a few Photoshopped versions of these images as well.

I think this one is my current favorite. I’ll probably work it a bit more to get a depth of field look, but as it is now, all I did was run it through one of the effects in the B&W Conversion Lab set, and added another frame action from that same set.

I also added a few with a Hot & Cold grunge effect. They’re posted a little further down this page, and they’re also in my gallery.

I’d love a bit of feedback -thanks for looking!

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Igot to messing around with some of my Sydney photos and came up with these two treatments of the Opera House, taken on a cloudy gray morning. I like how simple it was to create two different looks from the same image using just the tools in a few action packs.

 *I should mention that both of these were done with my Handy Actions & B&W Conversion Lab action sets in Elements 5.

On the first image, I used the Depth of Field - linear action, and did some touch up on the mask it creates. I re-drew the gradient and followed that up with some spot touch-up on the mask with a soft round brush, bringing the focus to the people on the steps with the large structure looming in the background.

I selected the foreground with the rectangular marquee, then I ran the New Layer from Selection action to put it all by itself. I darkened it a bit, and increased the fade with a Gaussian Blur.

Then I opened up the B&W Conversion Lab set, and ran the Elegant Outline (White 2) action to create the frame. Finally, I added the text in the lower right corner with the font Y2K Neophyte (available from DaFont.com).

The final result looked (to me) a bit dark and ominous - the little people scurrying about in front of this looming menace in the background. The opera house is blurred intentionally for a bit of drama and an implication that its always lurking. Could be a symbol for ____________ (that’s a blank for you to fill in….)

(Whew! How’s that for symbolism and freshman interpretation!)

For the second take of the same image, I wanted a lighter look and feel to the same image, so I changed the Depth of Field action to put the focus on the building, making it almost cathedral-like. The people don’t really play a role in this version - they’re secondary to the structure, so they’re in the blurry foreground.

The monotonous gray sky didn’t work for the look I was after, so I created a new layer and drew a gradient from top to about halfway down, using two shades of blue for my foreground and background colors. I rough-selected the sky with the magic wand from the original background layer, and with the gradient layer selected, ran the Layer Mask - Reveal Selection action from Handy Actions 2.5. Then, clicking the gradient thumbnail in the Layers palette, I ran a Motion Blur filter, along with a bit of liquify to mix it up a bit. I also added a Hue/Saturation adjustment and boosted the saturation a bit.

Next, I created another layer at the top and ran the Clouds filter. I made a selection of the sky area again and ran the  Layer Mask - Reveal Selection action again so the clouds only show up in the sky. I changed the blend of the gradient layer to Multiply for the final look.

To keep it light, I figured a white frame would look best, so I ran the “Elegant Outline (Black 2)” action from B&W Lab. (It’s kind of a misnomer to call it “Elegant Black 2“, but if you look closely, you’ll see that the fine line frame is black surrounded by white. The opposite is true of the “Elegant White” & “Elegant White 2” actions - they have a fine white line surrounded by black.)

*Also, the difference between Elegant White/Black 1 & 2 is that the “2″ versions have the fine line slightly inset into the image, while the regular one has the fine line flush with the image’s edges.

I finished this one off with the same text & font from above, only in black for this image.

What do you think?

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