1. Take picture in Photo Booth, or directly from Adium’s ImagePicker
2. Click spiral effect button, then choose the Color Invert filter
3. Click Set to apply filter
4. Click your buddy icon, click Choose Icon
5. Repeat steps 2 – 4 and apply the filters False Color, then Concert
6. Voila – your buddy icon is red hot!

Typically I’ll take my photos using Photo Booth so I can keep the original, and sometimes I may even use that picture for my dailymugshot.  When you walk through these filters, you’ll notice some filters won’t work as well for some photos, so play around with what you use.  Sometimes I’ll replace Color Invert with X-Ray, or Concert with Gamma Adjust.  It all depends on the picture I choose for a buddy icon.  Sometimes I’ll just keep layering until I create some crazy looking buddy icon, go crazy!

Here’s a photo step by step so you can see the final product.

1.The Original

2.Color Invert

3.False Color

4.Concert

The bad news is that home burned down.  Fortunately nobody was hurt in the fire, and the single resident, a 90 year old lady, was evacuated in time.  Here are some photos I snapped on my phone.

Here are some shots I snapped as I was driving up to the neighborhood.

sequence of shots taken while driving

Here is a panorama from near the fire.  Notice how much land the fire coverred.  The owner of that house was watering his property the entire time. The fire came right up to his fence, but did not catch.  Thank goodness.

sketchy panorama of the scene of the fire