It just won’t go away
No turning back now. Grab your goggles, you’ve seen it before. You’ll see it again. You’ll see it when you really wish you wouldn’t. The worn, torn, vintage look just won’t go away. And, we kind of like it ~mostly
While working on designs for a client as an example, I thought I’d to put together some simple steps to help you achieve the scraping, scratching and trashing you desire, using only native Photoshop tools.
Your essential tool set
Basically, you only need 3 tools and a little elbow grease to accomplish what you desire.
First up:
the burn tool.
The burn tool will give you those wonderful oxidized edges that will give your design the appropriate aging.
Next up:
the eraser tool
It’s that simple. With a little care and the right brush, you can tear, rip and tatter your edges.
The only thing left is to add a little texture to give your design some substance. Texture should be used with discretion. It’s not necessary to give everything texture. A little bit goes a long way. Photoshop with a few built in filters you can use out of the box, Aristic Filters and Pattern Overlays.
With the right layering and patterns, you can achieve very unique looking textures, without much work at all. If that’s not doing it for you, try laying down colors using different paint brushes and then apply the Artistic Filters. You don’t need to worry too much about color or what you lay down to start. It can all be fixed with filters.
The key to mastering these techniques is experimentation. It’s always best to start small and work your way up. I prefer setting my opacity for both the burn tool and the eraser at around 9-13% to start. This will give you the subtle changes you need to get the most natural weathering.
If you’re still looking for better filters and less work, check out Mister Retro. They’ve developed some ver convincing machine washed filters that will do the trick. Just a note, Machine Wash Filters are not yet compatible with CS3 for Mac. The upgrade is due out this fall.
Happy trashing!
