I was playing with a nice photo I’ve found in Flickr and while editing to make it look nice in a light background I came up with a very simple but sleek grunge effect. Here’s the result (click the pictures to see them in full size):

It takes 2 minutes and you just need two layers. Let’s get started!

Step 1 – Find the picture

Find any picture that has nice contrasts.

Step 2 – Decrease Saturation

Decrease the saturation (Filters > Adjust Color > Hue/Saturation…) of the picture to remove the color (-81 in my example). I’ve leaved a bit of color because it gives this “old” effect.

Step 3 – Increase Contrast

Increase the contrast (Filters > Adjust Color > Brightness/Contrast…) without any fear (in my example it’s 63). But not too much. You can play a bit with the brightness to balance it.

Step 4 – Duplicate layer

We are done with this layer. Right click it and Duplicate it. Hide the bottom one (click the eye at the left of the layer).

Step 5 – Gaussian Blur

Add Glaussian Blur (Filters > Blur > Gaussian Blur…) to the new layer (15 in my example).

Step 6 – Darken

In Blend mode (it’s a dropdown in the Properties toolbar at the bottom, next to the transparency dropdown), select Darken.

Step 7 – Unhide the first layer

Unhide the first layer, it should be at the bottom.

That’s it! The final result looks like this (click the image to view it full size):

Final words

Although it’s true that Fireworks is quite limited compared to Photoshop and it doesn’t have the same community as Adobe’s big one, the speed and ease of use of FW makes it the perfect tool for beginners to semi-professionals with a nice and sweet learning curve.

Images in this post are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike Non-Commercial.
Original: mac as music studio by shapeshift
Result: Grunge effect Photo Tutorial in Adobe Fireworks by Xavi Esteve