Banner Tut.
Go from this to 
I use Photoshop Elements 4.0
Not very imageheavy, just a lot of links. And of course these work for icons too!
This is actually a banner for Iconfiend_100. But my claim hasn't gotten approved yet. I was bored one day ]:
Alright! Start with a nice, grungy base. I used this one by Gender. Of course I don't resize it so the whole thing shows up; just use a part of it.
Paste the image you want on and go to town coloring it. I personally think that simple coloring over tons of shading would be better for this. Erase whatever you don't want (background, whatever) and make sure it's over your grungy base.
Like This
Next I put this light texture, made in about 5 seconds by me (black background, red brush, some blurring and there you go) and set it to Screen, %100
We should have something like this now
Next, exclusion layer! #0d0c22, flood fill on a new layer, Exclusion %100. I didn't quite think that was dark enough, I made another new layer, and flood filled it with #dbd1aa, and set it to Multiply, %80 (Play around with opacities until you find one that looks right, of course!)
Much darker, yes?
Well, I wanted to put some text on there. So between the colored image and the screen layer, I put three white rectangles for my text. Like so.
Then using the font "Stereofidelic", I typed (in various sizes to fit on the rectangles...) my text.
Aaaand...Voila! Done!
I use Photoshop Elements 4.0
Not very imageheavy, just a lot of links. And of course these work for icons too!
This is actually a banner for Iconfiend_100. But my claim hasn't gotten approved yet. I was bored one day ]:
Alright! Start with a nice, grungy base. I used this one by Gender. Of course I don't resize it so the whole thing shows up; just use a part of it.
Paste the image you want on and go to town coloring it. I personally think that simple coloring over tons of shading would be better for this. Erase whatever you don't want (background, whatever) and make sure it's over your grungy base.
Like This
Next I put this light texture, made in about 5 seconds by me (black background, red brush, some blurring and there you go) and set it to Screen, %100
We should have something like this now
Next, exclusion layer! #0d0c22, flood fill on a new layer, Exclusion %100. I didn't quite think that was dark enough, I made another new layer, and flood filled it with #dbd1aa, and set it to Multiply, %80 (Play around with opacities until you find one that looks right, of course!)
Much darker, yes?
Well, I wanted to put some text on there. So between the colored image and the screen layer, I put three white rectangles for my text. Like so.
Then using the font "Stereofidelic", I typed (in various sizes to fit on the rectangles...) my text.
Aaaand...Voila! Done!
