Posted by Sue

Dont’ you love seeing a new photo that looks all scratched, grungy and just beat up? I know I do. So I toyed around and found a couple ways to get my photos to have that look. One thing I did is I made my own grunge blending mask. I took a 4 x 6 layer, filled it with black and then took my grungy brushes (you can make your own by using cement pictures, scratch pictures, etc. or use free ones off of the net) and erased the black at different opacities. Sometimes you want your photo to look like it’s been marred, but not necessarily see through. Play with them to see what you like. Then, add your photo on the next layer and press ctrl + alt + g or ctrl + g, depending on your Adobe program. Actually, I’ll put my photo on before I do my erasing to see if I like the look on the photo. And that’s it! Very easy, but super cool. I do have some blending mask freebies for you too at the end :)

Here’s a sample of one so you can see what it looks like:

Next, for Photoshop and I think Elements, I can’t remember LOL, those programs have b/w and sepia actions. You can age them without having to buy anything. You can also find a bunch of free plug-in’s and filters at http://www.optikvervelabs.com/ . These are really great. You can also find free actions at http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/exchange/index.cfm?event=productHome&exc=16&loc=en_us and you really have to look through everything because they have some really awesome ones. I totally admit to finding this site from one of Emily Powers layouts. I just love the Old Toy Camera or Holga actions.

Lastly, you can use an Adobe Lightroom Preset. One little bit if you don’t know this, you must have the Adobe Lightroom program in order to use any of the Lightroom Presets. They will not work in Photoshop or Elements. That said Lightroom is just super cool. You can sharpen, contrast, fix lighting problems, vignette your photos….to name just a few things. If you do not have the program, you can get a free 30 day trial at Adobe’s site. Presets can give your photos the coolest look to them. I just love those Presets:). There are lots of free one’s out there and I’m going to give you some here :). You can also get from many stores. I have some at Sophia Sarducci’s.

Here are samples of the Presets and the final pictures with the Presets and Blending Masks:

Grungy Prest #1

Grungy Preset #2

Grungy Preset #3

Grungy Preset #4

Grungy Preset #5

when it’s all put together…..one is more subtle and one is more Grun-gy:). Many times the photos will look different depending on the background color.

So go and play with those photos and make your photos your own. Enjoy and show us your photos and/or layouts.

You can DOWNLOAD the freebie Here.

***edit***the files to download are the blending masks and Adobe Lightroom Presets mentioned in the write up. So if you see a strange file they are the Lightroom Presets.