**Program Tutorials** : Photoshop Elements : *Technique

This tutorial describes one method for making scratch effects in PSE 2.0.  This method can also be used in different versions of PSE and Photoshop.

Also, you can use this method to create a scratch overlay, then apply it to different papers to ‘grunge them up’.  I keep copies of some of my favorite overlays together in one folder, which is really convenient when I am in a middle of a layout and need to age a paper quickly.

File> New Create a new canvas of your desired size (i.e., 8x8, 8.5x11, 12x12).

In the Toolbox, select the Rectangle Tool.

Using the Color Picker tool select black as the color of your box.  (This is so you can see the white scratches we will be applying).

Drag your mouse from the top left corner to the bottom right, creating a black square that fills the canvas.

Select the brush tool from the Toolbox.

You can choose any brush, preferably one with a hard edge.  The wet media brushes are good too.  I have chosen Hard Round 5 pixels (third brush in the first row in the image below).  Experiment with different brushes for different effects.

Make sure you have select white as the foreground color (at the bottom of the Toolbox).

We are now going to create white ‘scratches; by dragging the brush across the black field.

Scratch by dragging the brush as desired.

As you can see in the Layers Palette, there are two layers, the white background, and the white scratches on the black box.  We are going to save this layer as a transparent .png file so we can place it over any paper to give it a roughed up look.

In the layers palette, select Shape 2, then right click to Duplicate Layer. 

In the duplicate layer dialogue box, select Destination Document New.  This gives us a new document with just one layer.

We are going to remove the black background using the Magic Wand tool. .

Select the magic wand tool .

In the options bar, specify to subtract from a selection

For Tolerance, enter a value between 0 to 255. We will use 5, a low value to select colors very similar to the pixel we click.

To define a smooth selection edge, select Anti-aliased.

To select only adjacent areas using the same colors, select Contiguous. We will deselect the Contiguous box so we can select all the black sections in the entire image.

In the image, click anywhere in the black section.  Since Contiguous is selected, all black pixels in the entire image are selected

Note: the dotted line (often called ‘ants marching’) indicates the area that is selected.

Once all the black pixels are selected, press the Delete key

Now we are left with a transparent image with the white scratches.  Let’s save this as a .png file before we go on.

NOTE:  Unless you are creating images for the web, do not select Interlaced in the save options for a .png file, as it makes the file size larger.

Now, to create a scratched background, we will create a new layer in the color we wish to use.

Use the Toolbox, Rectangle tool, then use the Color Picker to select a color.  We’ll use a shade of teal.

Then using the mouse, drag to create a teal box that covers the entire image.

Since we want the scratches on top of the teal, we will use the Layers Palette, and drag the layer with the teal square (Shape 2) underneath the scratches (Shape 1).

We now have a teal background with white scratches.

You can play with the opacity of the scratched layer for different effects.

Flatten the image and save as a .jpg file for future use.