From YourSITE.com
ELEMENT: PDQ Papers
By Terry Maruca 2009
Apr 26, 2009, 22:24
Sometimes you’d like a few extra “plain” papers to add to the gorgeous paper pack or kit you just purchased.
This tutorial will show you how to “whip” up interesting plain papers, PDQ (pretty darn quick).
To do this, we’ll use a couple of basic Photoshop Elements filters.

Pick two coordinating colors as your foreground and background colors
Add the two colors to a blank 12x12 document.
FILTER – RENDER – CLOUDS

Do you notice the 2 color effect on the paper on the example to the left? This is the result of running the clouds filter.

Change the cloud pattern.
In this case, we will use FILTER – STYLIZE – WIND. Choose “Stagger” and “From the Left.”

You can experiment with any setting!
Here is the result:

Apply wind many more times.
DID YOU KNOW…. To repeat applying the previous filter, just press [CTRL] [F]. So in this case, if you press [CTRL] [F], you would run the Wind filter again. I pressed [CTRL] [F] quickly about 19 more times.
Then I ran the wind filter again, (FILTER – STYLIZE – WIND), changing the option to “From the Right”. I pressed [CTRL] [F] about 15 times to run the wind filter again for 15 times.

Duplicate your layer and Rotate it.
I duplicated the layer LAYER – DUPLICATE LAYER.

Then I rotated the top layer. IMAGE – ROTATE – LAYER – 90degrees RIGHT.

Choose a Blending Mode on the TOP layer such as the DARKEN] . You can see the blending mode on the photo to the left.

Below is the result:
Flatten your two layers.
LAYER – FLATTEN IMAGE
To the left is an enlarged view of part of the paper. I did apply a texture.

You could change the colors of this paper:
ENHANCE – ADJUST COLOR – ADJUST HUE/SAT
You could add patterns to this paper. There is so much you can do.
By using the CLOUDS filter then applying other filters repeatedly, you can quickly create many different paper effects!
See how fast you can whip up a plain paper that has subtle patterns. Start with the cloud filter, then apply other filters. Remember to press [CTRL] [F] to quickly run filters repeatedly.
It’s fun to experiment with filters.
Terry Maruca
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