photoshop

does anybody know a good way to make an image look sort of war damaged or worn?
im making a website, and im sort of going for that matrix/fallout/post apocolyptic look.

i figured out how to do computer screens well, but i'm having a problem with figuring out a few things

1) texturing the metal to look damaged

2)making the wires look 3d and...wire-like


the damage im totally clueless on.

the wires i tried doing a contour effect and a few shadowing effects, but they didnt work all that well. then i tried doing a texture and a pattern overlay to get the wirelike appearance, but that didnt work too well either.

For the metal I would recommend using the Craquelure filter and set a high Crack Spacing, low Crack Depth and Crack Brightness all the way up. You should be able to get some decent results with that. And as for the wire.. only thing I can think of is make a line where you want your wire and do an inner bevel. You'd need a plugin to do that inner bevel though. That would work well.

alright thanks

where do you go to get good plugins? im sure theres a good site but i have no idea where

The good ones can be pretty pricey. I have them because we have a few liscenses for them at work. Ones I can recommend are Xenofex and Eye Candy. Those are "standards" for photoshop. If you ever plan on doing anything more than what you're working on.. do the graphics world a favor and use those filters sparingly