From Wiki: "Gentlemen began to wear the top hat at the end of the 18th century... and developed from a fashion into a symbol of urban respectability... The top hat is sometimes associated with the upper class, becoming a target for satirists and social critics. It was particularly used as a symbol of capitalism in cartoons in socialist and communist media, long after the headgear had been abandoned by those satirized. It was a part of the dress of Uncle Sam and used as a symbol of U.S. monopoly power. The character Rich Uncle Pennybags, who personifies financial monopoly in the board game Monopoly, wears a top hat."
Here we see a descendant of Rich Uncle Pennybags. Keeping the memory of his dear departed wife, Penelope Pennybags, in his heart, Milburn Pennybags has spent all his "pennies" on the finest transportation of the day in search of his own fortune - which turns out to be just a mirage. Like discovering that the real Wizard of Oz was just an ordinary man playing with illusions, ol' Pennybags finds the top hat is just a mechanical device of an ancient civilization, supposedly used to control the minds of the populace, and left to decay in the sands of a distant land. Oddly, Milburn's adventure is also an illusion, just a figment of his imagination. (5 years and 2832 days ago)
good luck 
the top hat... the black and white dots all over it. either you placed a dissolve blending layer to it (never do this) or you rendered a noise layer (do this) if you did the dissolve blending layer, then remove it and make a selection of the hat and render a noise to a new layer. With this new noise layer, use a Gaussian blur on it to match the blur of the hat. Use the "Opacity" slider for the noise layer and reduce the opacity to about 75%. Try a few different blending layer options to it... most likely "Overlay" or "Multiply" will yield the most desirable results... good luck!
It is noise, bjaockx, and was tweaking it when I saw your comment, had tried levels but that really didn't work. Your suggestion of blur and overlay has worked the best, thanks very much! Was going for the 'beam me up' effect, I think this is better.
I like it, cool peace of work. That hat and gears look purdy good to me.
Howdie stranger!
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