ELEMENT : Designer Paper Edges

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ELEMENT : Designer Paper Edges
By Shelleyrae Cusbert 2008
Aug 24, 2008, 20:09

This tutorial will show you how to create and use your own paper edges for your layouts!

The first part is easy – take a sheet of ordinary letter size/A4 typing paper and tear a series of small random nicks into one edge. Then crumple the edge however you wish – the result will be uniquely you!
For curls – wrap the edges around a pencil or similar.

Scan the paper by placing the sheet on the scanner bed with a backing sheet of paper or card behind it in a contrasting color.
Scan the paper, I’ve used 400ppi here to give me a bit of leeway in size. I always scan for a preview first and have found that some automatic options applied by my scanner like Auto Tone are better turned off, while increasing the backlight correction gives better results for the extraction. I also find it easier to adjust the scan area to exclude as much of the extra background as possible. Each time I scan a new paper I may alter the settings to suit.

Save your scan in JPG or TIFF according to your preference.
Open the scanned paper in Photoshop and make a duplicate image to work on.
Use CTRL +J to copy the layer and hide the background layer by clicking on the layers eye symbol

The first task is to extract the background. Start by selecting the Magic Wand tool in the tools palette, deselect contiguous on the options bar and select a tolerance. I have started with 35 here.
Click on the area you wish to discard – in this case the purple area. The selection (marching ants) will be made.

Press delete on your keyboard.

You will most likely be left with some solid areas that still need to be deleted. Zoom in to an edge and use the magic wand tool to select these patches, be careful of what is selected and on occassions unexpected areas are included. For now ignore any color tinted edges like those seen in the view below.

Go to View> Fit on Screen to see the whole paper.
Apply a stroke by double clicking on the layer to open the Layer style palette, and select Stroke from the menu at left. Increase the size of the stroke so that you can see any stray pixels surrounding the paper. Select OK.

Choose the Eraser tool from the tools palette and use a solid hard edge basic brush of the appropriate size to delete the areas highlighted by the stroke. Zoom in for a closer view.

Remove the stroke by right clicking on the layer and choosing Clear Layer Style.

Go to Image> Adjustments> Desaturate.

Select the eraser tool and basic round brush with the hardness set to about 95%. Zoom into between 100-200% (View> Actual Pixels) and starting at the one edge clean up the edges of the paper. You may find it helpful to create a new solid color layer to place behind the paper layer to see the edge more clearly. The aim is not to delete the shadowed edge as it is necessary to create the dimension of the fold/curl but to clean up the edges where the extraction has left jagged edges as seen in the screenshot below. Use small strokes, rather than attempting long erasures. If you have some straight edges use the Polygonal Lasso tool to select the edges to delete. This can be a tedious process but will give you quality results.

Once you have finished the extraction process save the file.
You can use your paper as is by adding your choice of patterned paper or a color fill layer on a new layer above the paper layer. Use CTRL and click to select the scanned paper and then with the color fill layer chosen select CTRL+J. Change the Color fill layer blending mode to suit.

To be able to use just the curl/fold for any paper requires further extraction.
Using the same methods as used above, zoom in and extract the edge. The Polygonal tool will allow you to make an effective initial extraction. Use CTRL +J to duplicate the edge and turn off the layer beneath. You can then use the eraser tool to clean up any stray areas.

You may wish to experiment with brightness and contrast to determine how much texture the final result will have. You can also use the dodge and burn tools to better define shadows or lighten areas. You can also apply a slight sharpening if desired.
When you are happy with the edge copy and paste the file to a new document that is 12 inch high with the width dependent on the width of the edge. Resize the edge as required so only a small amount overhangs the height of the edges at the top and bottom of the canvas. This is necessary to use the paper edge successfully.

Go to Image> Trim to discard the extra areas around the edge and save the project.

To use your edge, drag the edge onto the project and position it above the paper you wish to apply it to.
Use CTRL and click on the image thumbnail to select the edge. With the selection still active click on the paper layer and use CTRL+J to make a duplicate of the edge shape from the patterned paper. Turn off the layer you have just created.

Select the paper edge layer, use CTRL+ click on the image thumbnail to select the edge and choose the magic wand tool from the tool palette. Ensure contiguous is selected on the options bar and then click on the area that you need to delete. This will select either just all of the area to the left, or right of the paper edge according to your choice.

With the selection still active, click on the patterned paper layer and select Delete on your keyboard. Use CTRL+D to deselect the area.

Make the patterned edge copy you created before visible and drag to the layer above the paper edge. Adjust the blending mode of the layer (usually Multiply or Linear Burn gives the most effective results but experiment)

Add a shadow to the inside of the paper edge

Merge the patterned paper and two edge layers to finish.