Last week I posted a free Photoshop designs of old paper items. In today’s tutorial I’ll show a basic method for creating an old and worn paper sheet with fold marks across it. For learning, we’ll use only Photoshop Filters for creating the textures, without any imported images. Although including such images, of almost any type of grungy texture, could make achieving a rich and detailed result much easier.
Step 1: Creating New File
Create a new file with a size of 525 x 525 px and 72 dpi.
Color the background with #cdcdcd (RGB 205,205,205).
Step 2: Creating The Paper’s Base
We’ll begin with a simple black square on which we’ll add a few layer styles to define the color and some shadow. We’ll also use a filter to make the contour slightly wavy, this will help our paper on its way to look old and worn.
Create a new layer and name it Base.
Use the Rectangle Marquee to create a 465 x 465 px square in the center of your file (use the shift key to maintain width and height ratio).
Fill it with black (#000000).
Deselect.
Go to Filter -> Distort -> Wave and in the window set the following parameters.
Hit OK.
Your square should have slightly deformed contours now.
We’ll now set the color with a layer style.
Open the Layer Style Window and choose Color Overlay and set the color to #d7c9b5 (RGB 215,201,181).
Wait with the OK button, there’s another style coming.
Now for the shadow, choose Drop Shadow and set the following parameters.
Hit OK to apply both styles to the Base Layer.
Step 3: Shading and Texturing
Our paper sheet got its form now, and also a basic shadow. We’ll now move on to create some textures for it and will also add some bright thin stroke to the paper’s contour which will add some “thickness” to it.
Create a new group and name it Textures. Inside it, create a new layer, name it BrightFrame01 and set the opacity to 30%.
Ctrl+Click the thumbnail of layer Base to make a selection from it.
Fill with white color (#ffffff).
Contract the selection by 1 px (Select -> Modify -> Contract).
Click Del to erase.
Deselect.
We will now enhance the bright stroke in a few areas along the contour.
Duplicate the layer and name it BrightFrame02.
Set the opacity to 60%.
Add a mask to the layer.
In the Layers Window, Alt+Click the thumbnail of the mask to view and work on it.
Select all by clicking Ctrl+A.
Fill the selection with black (if your background color is set to black, as in its default for masks, just click Del).
Deselect.
Set the Gradient Tool to Radial, from White to Transparent, and apply it twice as shown in the image below.
You could of course achieve the same mask without Alt+Clicking it and viewing it, just click the mask thumbnail to activate it and create the exact same gradients.
Click the layer thumbnail to exit the mask view.
We’ll now start creating some textures.
Create a new layer.
Go to Filter -> Render -> Clouds.
Go to Filter -> Render -> Difference Clouds.
The result is actually random, but you could click Ctrl+F to repeat applying the last filter until you get something that resembles the following image. No need to get too exact since the texture on old paper has random quality anyway.
Go to Filter -> Pixelate -> Mezzotint, set the drop down box to Grainy Dots and hit OK.
Set the layer’s Blending Mode to Dissolve and the opacity to 20%.
We’ll now rasterize the layer by merging it with a new layer.
Create a new layer.
Use the Shift Key to multi select the 2 top layers.
Click Ctrl+E (Layers -> Merge Layers) to merge both selected layers.
Go to Filter -> Blur -> Blur.
Name the layer GrainyTexture.
The texture we are working on currently expands beyond the paper sheet. Time to fix that!
Activate the Texture Group in the Layers Window.
Ctrl+Click the thumbnail of layer Base to make a selection from it.
Add a mask to the group, this will bound all the textures in this group to the paper’s area.
Activate layer GrainyTexture and set its opacity to 4%.
We’ll now add some shading to the center of the paper sheet.
Create a new layer and name it MidShade.
Set the Blending Mode to Overlay and Opacity to 60%.
Set the Gradient Tool to Diamond shape, Black to Transparent, and apply from the center of the image as shown below.
Tip: Use Rulers to set Guides to determine the center of the paper sheet.
Moving on to one last texture.
Create a new layer.
Apply the following filters:
Filter -> Render -> Clouds
Filter -> Render -> Difference Clouds
Filter -> Stylize -> Find Edges
Your file should look somewhat like this.
Go to Image -> Adjustments -> Levels and adjust the Midtone Input Level Handle to achieve a result as shown in the following image.
Go to Filter -> Artistic -> Underpainting, set the following parameters and apply.
Click Ctrl+I to invert and set the layer’s blending mode to Color Burn and its opacity to 13%.
Add a mask to the layer.
Set the Radial Gradient Tool to Black to White and apply on the mask as shown below.
Set the Radial Gradient to white to transparent and apply on the mask twice more as shown in the following image.
We will now add a vignette to the sheet.
Open the Paths Window and create a new path.
Activate the Rounded Rectangle Tool, set the radius to 50 px and apply following the image below.
Ctrl+Click the thumbnail of the mask to make a selection.
Go to Select -> Inverse (Ctrl+Shift+I) to invert the selection.
Create a new layer, name it Vignette, set the blending mode to Overlay and opacity to 70%.
Fill the selection with black (#000000).
Go to Filter -> Blur -> Gaussian Blur, set the radius to 40 px and apply.
That’s it for the textures! We’ll now continue with creating the fold marks.
Step 4: Creating Fold Marks
We’ll now create some folding marks, typical of worn papers. We’ll achieve that by using gradients and strokes with some filters and effects applied to them.
Collapse the Textures group in the Layers Window.
Create a new group and name it FoldMarks.
Like we did with the previous group, create a mask using the shape of layer Base.
Create a new layer within the group.
Set the Gradient Tool to Reflected Gradient and white to transparent.
Apply it from the center of the paper to either right or left to create a very narrow (no more than 5 px wide) gradient as shown below.
Go to Filter -> Distort -> Wave, set the following parameters and apply.
Set the opacity to 20%.
Add a Bevel And Emboss style to the layer with the following settings.
Add a mask to the layer.
Set the Reflected Gradient Tool to Black to White and apply as shown below.
Duplicate the layer and activate its mask.
Set the opacity to 30%.
Set the Radial Gradient Tool to White to Black and apply.
In the Layers Window, use the Shift key to select both top layers.
Ctrl+E to merge them to a single layer.
Go to Edit -> Transform -> Flip Horizontal (the stroke will fit better when the bright part of the Bevel and Emboss effect will be on the right).
Name the merged layer VerticalStroke.
Duplicate the layer and name it HorizontalStroke.
Go to Edit -> Transform ->Rotate 90 degrees CW.
The 2 strokes we worked on basically create the fold marks effect.
We’ll enhance it a bit now.
Create a new layer and name it BrightStroke.
Use the Single Row/Column Marquee Tool to create a cross with the width of 1 px, centered in the paper sheet and file.
Fill it with White and deselect.
To apply the Wave filter again, with its previous settings, click Ctrl+F.
Set the opacity to 30%.
Use the Polygonal Lasso Tool to make a selection containing the right/bottom part of the crossed stroke.
To cut the selected part of the cross to a new layer click Ctrl+Shift+J.
Name the new layer DarkStroke.
Click Ctrl+I to invert from white to black.
Use the arrows to nudge the layer 3 px to the right and 3 px down.
Set the opacity to 15%.
Step 5: Adding Shades
We’ll now quickly add a final shading effect to the paper. Some brightness to selected areas on the paper sheet to give give some 3D feel.
Collapse group FoldMarks and Expand group Textures.
Activate layer Aging.
Use the Rectangle Marquee Tool from the center of the file as shown below.
Hold the Shift key and use the Rectangle Marquee Tool to add to the selection.
While layer Aging is activated, add a Brightness/Contrast Adjustment Layer.
Set Brightness to 15 and Contrast to 10.
Click Ctrl+G to group the adjustment layer within a new group and name it MainShade.
Add a mask to the MainShade group.
Set the Radial Gradient Tool to white to black and apply from the upper-left corner of the sheet to its bottom-right corner.
We’ll now add another shadow for the paper sheet, to make it look more complex.
Collapse group Textures.
Activate the background layer and add a new layer above it.
Name the layer Shadow and set its opacity to 30%.
Ctrl+Click the thumbnail of Base layer to make a selection.
Fill the selection with black (#000000) and deselect.
Move the Shadow layer 2 px down and 1 px to the right.
Step 6: Adding A Printed Frame
As a final touch to our paper sheet we’ll add a printer frame on it.
We’ll use a Displacement Map to have the frame a bit distorted according the paper’s shading and form.
Above group FoldMarks create a new layer and name it Frame.
Use the Rectangle Marquee Tool to create a 433 x 433 px square.
Fill the selection with the dark red color #5c1616.
Go to Select -> Modify -> Contract, set to 3 px and hit OK.
Click Del to erase the selection’s content.
Deselect.
Now, let’s create the displacement map which will determine how the frame will distort according to the paper’s shading.
In the Layers Window make layer Frame invisible by clicking the eye icon on its left.
Ctrl+A to select all.
Go to Layer -> Flatten Image.
Ctrl+C to copy the flattened image to the clipboard.
Ctrl+Z to undo back until the file retains its levels.
Paste the flattened image from the clipboard as a layer above Frame and name it DisplacementMap.
Click Shift+Ctrl+U to Desaturate the layer (Image -> Adjustements -> Desaturate).
Go to Image -> Adjustments -> Levels (Ctrl+L) and set the following parameters.
Go to Image -> Adjustments -> Brightness/Contrast, set the Contrast to 100 and hit OK.
We would now like to save the Displacement Map as a separate PSD file.
Go to File -> Save As, activate the ‘As A Copy’ check box and name the copy Displacement.
We’ll now move to actually distort the frame accordingly.
Make layer DisplacementMap invisible.
Make layer Frame visible again and make sure it’s activated.
Go to Filter -> Distort -> Displace and set the values of Horizontal and Vertical Scale to 2.
Hit OK.
A Browsing Window will open, choose the Displacement.psd you previously saved as a copy.
The frame will distort according to the paper’s shading as though it’s printed on it.
Set the opacity of layer Frame to 50%.
That’s it! We have finished creating our old and worn paper sheet.
You could easily modify your file to achieve different results for the paper sheet. Play with the opacity of the different texture layers. Alter the different masks or add your own textures in different blending modes. Apply the displacement map we created on texts or anything you would like to seem as if printed on the old paper sheet. You could also play with the colors and size of the paper and use it in many ways such as a background for different elements in your designs.
Hope you found this useful!
