Alibony Lessons for Photoshop Elements, Lightroom, and Digital Photography

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Photoshop Elements: Multicolor Textured Paper

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Adobe® Photoshop® Elements 6

August 14, 2008

In this lesson, learn how to make embossed textured paper. You can emboss a logo, a signature or any decorative design on the paper. The Custom Shape tool is a great resource for decorative shapes to emboss.

Embossed Textured Paper
Embossed textured paper

This paper is a variation of the paper created in the Aged Textured Paper lesson. For more textured papers, see the following lessons:

Aged Textured Paper
Multicolored Textured Paper
Patterned Textured Paper

To make embossed textured paper:

  1. From the File menu, select New, then Blank File. Enter the dimensions you want for your paper and click OK.

  2. From the Edit menu, select Fill Layer and fill the background layer with 50% Gray.

    Fill Layer dialogue

  3. In the Layers palette, add a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer above the background layer. You can later change your paper color easily by editing the Hue/Saturation adjustment layer:

    1. In the Layers palette, click the Create adjustment layer icon and select Hue/Saturation.

    2. In the Hue/Saturation dialogue box, check Colorize and select a green color, for example:

      Hue/Saturation dialogue
    3. Click OK.

  4. Add a Pattern adjustment layer:

    1. In the Layers palette, click the Create adjustment layer icon and select Pattern.

    2. In the Pattern Fill dialogue box, click the arrow to the right of the pattern thumbnail to select a pattern. In this example, the pattern used is Stone in the Artist Surfaces group.

      Pattern Fill dialogue
    3. Click OK.

  5. In the Layers palette, set the blend mode of the pattern layer to Soft Light. The pattern is now applied to the paper.

    Pattern applied

  6. Add an embossed layer above the pattern layer:

    1. Using the Custom Shape tool, select and draw a custom shape. The custom shape will be created on its own layer above the pattern layer.
    2. On the options toolbar of the Custom Shape tool, click Simplify to change the shape to a raster graphic. Alternately, in the Layers palette, right-click on the layer thumbnail and select Simplify Layer.

    3. From the Filter menu, select Stylize, then Emboss. Adjust the height and amount as desired. Usually, a small height and amount works best. Click OK.

      Embossed filter
  7. In the Layers palette, set the blend mode of the embossed layer to Soft Light. Set the opacity to 75%.

  8. Add a drop shadow effect to the embossed layer for more depth:

    1. From the Windows menu, select Effects to open the Effects palette.

    2. In the Effects palette, click the Layer Styles icon, then select Drop Shadows from the drop-down list.

      Select layer styles

    3. Select the Soft Edge shadow and click Apply. The effect is applied and a small fx symbol is added to the layer in the Layers palette.

      fx symbol

    4. To edit the drop shadow, double-click the fx symbol on the emboss layer. The Style Settings dialogue is displayed.

      Edit effects
    5. Adjust the settings as desired and click OK.
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Updated on August 4, 2011