This week has not been going well. At. All! So instead of crawling under a rock I turn to my creative side to calm the raging sea inside. An hour or so into a project is where I find my peace. Your probably wondering what this all has to do with digital tutorials.
Let me share what I created while in my happy place.
Now let me show you how I created the “torn paper” edges you see here. First you will need Photoshop. I used Photoshop Elements 7. Then you will need some digital background papers. And some photos wouldn’t hurt either.
Now you want to erase the edges away. Select the “Eraser” from the tools on the left. Next you will want to use the “Torn Paper Scattered” brush in Photoshop Elements. I understand that there are a variety of “Grunge” brushes available online that also work well for applying the torn paper effect. You will probably want your brush size to be about 50 pixels. This should leave you some clearance between what you will be keeping and what yu will be discarding.
Once you have erased applied the torn paper effect you will need to discard the pieces you will not be using. The easiest way to do that is to use the Rectangular Marquee Tool and make a selction around those pieces only. To make it one whole selection, just click on “Add to Selection” from the tool bar on the top. Then just click “Delete” on your keyboard.
You will want to clean up any stray pieces of digital paper before proceeding to the next step. Just simply erase them away.
Now that you have a clean torn paper edge, its time to apply a little drop shadow to the paper to make it a little more realistic.You will also want to change the Drop Shadow settings so that the shadow appears where you have torn the paper.
Now we need to add another hint of realism to the torn paper. You know when you tear thick pieces of colored paper like card stock, the insides will be a slightly different color. We can add that touch easily in Photoshop by creating a new layer (don’t forget to name your layers). Then use the Eye Dropper tool to sample the color from your digital paper. Now you want to chose a lighter shade of that color but don’t go totally white (not sure if you can do white before Labor Day).
Once you have the color, you will use the Brush tool to paint on a hint of color. You will use the same “torn paper scattered” brush you used before. You will want to decrease the size of the brush to about 35 pixels. Now just drag your brush along the sides of the paper. Not too much though, you just want a hint of what is underneath the paper.
Let’s take it a step further and add some texture to this paint layer. Just click Filter on the navigation Menu. Scroll down to Texture and then select Testurizer. Wait a moment while a new window appears from cyber space.
See this is the window that appears. I think my picture explains it all because I’m starting to get typers cramp.
One more thing to make it all look right. The paper layer needs to be on top of the painted layer. So drag the layers into order. That’s all there is to it. Now go tear it up!
