stain effect?

[Grafixman]

I agree with Scott, too. Play with the transparency value of a solid color filled layer (or even texture filled layers, if you're feeling adventurous) over the pic, and also with the blend modes, and you could find some interesting variations of the effect. Or you could turn the idea around and play with the transparency and blend mode of the pic layer over a solid color filled background instead...
Copying an effect exactly is a good exercise, but it would still be just copying.
About the faded effect, it's a cool idea, but as said above, it is a bit hard to read. Perhaps a mouse over effect which makes the links and pictures darker (or normally colored) when the cursor goes over it?

[Demelza]

This may be too late but try this:

Go to Format...

Hue & Saturation

Adjust the lightness control to the level that looks best to you.

Good luck,

Demelza

[Rika24]

thanks, but i figured it out. the magic of "overlay" and "colorize"

shocking that i've had PI 8.5 since 2004 and i'm STILL finding new features.

here's an example of what i did:

http://www.maj.com/gallery/Rika24/av...lonewolves.png