Photoshop Elements: Make Textured Papers

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Adobe® Photoshop® Elements 6

August 15, 2008

Make your own unique and colorful textured papers for backgrounds and scrapbooking. Follow this four-step process to make an endless variety of textured papers:

  1. Create a solid color background.

  2. Add a texture layer and blend with the Overlay family of blend modes. You can add texture in many ways, for example:

    • Use the Paint Bucket tool to fill a layer with a pattern.
    • Use the Texturizer filter to create a texture.
    • Use the Clouds and Difference Clouds filters with the Emboss filter.
    • Copy and paste a photo of a texture.
    • Use custom brushes to paint a unique texture.
  3. Embellish with more colors, textures, patterns, brush strokes, and layer styles. Apply a blend mode to each embellishment layer you add.
  4. Finish with a Dodge and Burn layer to lighten some areas and darken others, adding contrast.

The following examples show a variety of textured papers.

Aged Textured Paper Multicolor Textured Paper
Aged textured paper Multicolor textured paper
Embossed Textured Paper Patterned Textured Paper
Embossed textured paper Patterned textured paper

Getting Started

For the basic process of making textured papers, see the Aged Textured Paper lesson.

For variations on the basic process, see the following lessons:

Multicolor Textured Paper
Embossed Textured Paper
Patterned Textured Paper

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Updated on November 9, 2009