Quick Tip Tuesday – super easy aged paper

This is a really easy and quick technique for digital scrapbookers to make aged paper using both Adobe Photoshop or Elements.  (This tutorial is done in Elements 8).  What I like best about this paper is because the various elements are on different layers, it’s really easy to quickly change them and make a wide variety of different papers.  So lets get started!

1) Go the File menu and select New – Blank File.  Use the dimensions you want or use the pull-down menu and select Scrapbook for predefined 6×6, 8×8, and 12×12 sizes.

2) Go to the Edit menu and select Fill Layer.  Use the pull-down menu to change the fill to 50% Gray.  You’ve just created a gray box – yea!

3) Go to Layers – New Adjustment Layer – Hue/Saturation.  This layer will determine the color of your paper.  As I said above, the beauty of this paper is how easy you can change this layer at a later point to make a different color paper.

For now, we want a tan color so in the Hue/Saturation dialog box click the Colorize button and set Hue to 35, Saturation to 40, and Lightness to +20.  You now have a nice tan paper.

4) Now we need some … clouds?  Yes, the cloud filter creates great texture for our paper.  So go to the Layer palette, create a New Layer, and name it “clouds”.  Press the “D” key to make sure your foreground and background colors are set to their default black and white, and then go to Filter – Render – Clouds.  You can hit Ctrl+F to make different textures.

5) Now go to Filer – Stylize – Emboss.  In the Emboss dialog box, vary to % between 150% to 500% to get more or less texture.  Now here’s a critical part – in your layer palette use the pull-down menu to set the blending mode to Soft Light.  And you have this:

6) Now we’ll add some additional texture.  Go to the bottom of the layers palette and click on the Create Adjustment Layer and select Pattern. (The Create Adjustment Layer button looks like this: )   In the pattern dialog box, click the arrow to the right of the thumbnail to select a pattern.  I used the Gouache Light on Watercolor in the Artist Surface group.  (see the dialog box on the left if it’s not clear).  Click Ok.

7) Again, set the Layer Blending mode to Soft Light and lower the layer opacity to about 75% to lessen the texture.  Looking good!

8 ) Now we’ll add some sizzle.  Let’s add some highlights and shadowing to the paper to make it sing.  Go to Layers and select Create a new layer.  Go to Edit – Fill and again fill it with 50% gray.  Now make sure to set the Layer Blending mode to Overlay.  (the paper will reappear – that’s normal).  Again press “D” to make sure the foreground and background are set to the default.

9) Grab a fairly large, soft-edged brush, set the opacity to 20% or less, and paint around the edges – you’ll see it will darken the areas you paint.  Hit the “X” key to switch the foreground and background colors and paint with white.  Where ever you paint, it will be lighter.

So that’s it!  A simple, quick aged textured paper you can use as a base to make lots of variations for your layouts.  Now by simply altering the layers we can get endless variations:

Changing the hue under the Hue/Saturation layer to make different colors…

Or changing the cloud and dodge and burn layers to get more or less texture.

I hope you liked this quick and easy aged paper.  You can see more of our Photoshop and Elements tips here.  If you have an questions or like or hate this technique, leave a comment.

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