Classic Photoshop Effects 11 - “High Teching” a photo

This is part eleven of a series that chronicles my journey through Scott Kelby’s book, Classic Photoshop Effects.

For this project, I had to take a photograph and turn it into something that looked “high tech”.  Here is the original photo that I used from Wikimedia Commons (click on photo to go to source):

After a few modifications, here is my result (click image to see full size):

I began by creating a pattern for the grid, filled a new layer with it, and faded it out towards the bottom of the image.  I added text to the sides of the image, but at 3 point font, you have no idea what it says (it’s the lyrics to “Please Don’t Stop the Music”).   I added a plus sign, not so much a nod to HP, but because the tutorial said to.

For the Marines text, I Googled the Marines logo to find the typeface typically used.  It looked a little dull on its own, so I added a metallic border by selecting the text, expanding it by one pixel, and filling it with a metallic gradient.  I then lowered that layer so the black text was on top of it.

I changed the picture to a green colorized tint, and added a slight dark vignette around the whole image.