I want to put a torn paper effect into my layout, and I can't figure out how to do this. I use elements 5. Can anyone help.

There are so many different approaches. Was going to direct you to SBB tutorial section but the only one I could find was for Paint Shop Pro. You could try searching the tutorials at other scrap sites. Here is a thread I found by doing a search in this forum.
Torn edges in PSE
I often use a combination of things I have learned from different torn edge tutorials. I need to get off the computer for now but will try to come back later and give you a rough sketch guideline sometime tomorrow.
Also SBB user Carinspixels had a bunch of torn edges on her blog awhile ago. Here is the link to that post in the blog freebies notifications forums
http://scrapbook-bytes.com/chat/showthread.php?t=28210
Don't know if they are still available.
Once you get your torn edge made you can save it as a PNG file and reuse as a template for future LO! Have fun learning.

Thank you, I will give see what I can find out. I love this digital stuff.

I had a PSE paper tear tutorial in the May 2006 issue of tid-bytes.
Not sure if it is still in the store or in the downloads area now.
Pretty simple to make them though, using standard brushes.

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Colleen in Friendly Manitoba...
Proudly selling digital designs at SBB
(Come take a peek at my Gallery or check my BLOG to see what I'm up to)

Janel K has some awesome paper tears in the store here: http://scrapbookbytes.com/store/digi...per_tears.html

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I haven't tried any of the tears with brushes-looks easier but here is a general for how I do mine.
1. Use freehand lasso tool to select area you want to delete - feather by 2 pixels and then delete.
2.Use the freehand lasso tool on the remaining area to make the tear part- use an irregular path -some wide areas and narrow areas as tears aren't always even -feather selection by 2 pixels then Ctrl+J to paste to new layer.
3. Ctrl+U to adjust hue and saturation - lower the saturation and increase the lightness until it becomes white.
4. Filter>Noise>Add Noise>GaussianBlur - check the box with monochromatic -play with slider for amount but a single digit number should be sufficient
5. Filter>Filter Gallery>Texture>Craquelure and play with the settings -you don't want any thing real harsh
6. Filter>Blur>Motion Blur - set the angle in the direction ofthe tear and just use a slight blur setting 2-5
***If you would like to save this tear for future use select it and copy and then paste in new document (file from clipboard choice) and save as a PNG file
7. Nudge the tear layer out away from the paper edge a bit then merge the tear and paper layers. Apply drop shadow
If you want to get really technical and picky you can use the smudge tool at a very small setting to pull out "fibers" a bit from the patterned paper into the tear area. I also do this on the torn white area to pull out fibers. Kind of tedious but more realistic if you will be printing out the LO.
Again- there are so many different methods and mine is a combination of techniques I learned from different tutorials. Digital Scrapbook Place had some tutorials on paper tearing when I fist got started. Would be interesting to see one using the brush technique as I haven't seen that and it sure sounds interesting. Hope this is enough to get you started.

I open the paper I wanted. Used the lasso tool to get the area I want, then used a brushed to get the torn effect. I must say I am pretty happy with it. Thank ou all for your help.