Image Mixing

I am trying to learn how images are mixed together. Examples are at:


the logos of:
http://www.areaxbnext.com/
http://www.xboxextended.com/forums/
http://www.genxbox.com/portal/

Well, there are different ways of achieving this, but the guidelines are:

different layers, layerstyles, opacity, gradients and layermasks...

Do a layermask on one of them and in that mask you do a gradient with black to transparent (if my brains get it right at this hour;)...) then you will see whats in the layer benieth...

Erase with a big soft brush and set the opacity and flow to what get the effect you want. (fast as hell)

And so on...Now, go and play ;)