Aged paper backgrounds

[Bad_Kat]

I am curious as how to get an aged paper look texture for backgrounds, very much like the ones Twincruiser used. http://e.domaindlx.com/lordkbob/Personal_Twincruiser022b.jpg

I've tried using clouds and different textures on top of them but I can never seem to come out with anything satisfactory. Anyone have any tips?

[Dirk]

You could try and scan a piece of cloth and adjust that a little for color to use as a background? Try it with the lid open and closed for effect.

Paper is less suitable for it, but an old blanket or a polishing rag might just be the right thing. Scale, play with some effects and the color settings to get the "feel" that you want.

[brokk]

Dont rely on photoshop entirely. Do what Dirk said or get any piece of paper, an A4 paper, and splatter some ink on it. Smear some tempera, stomp it, through dirt on it, crackle it, you can even tear it and burn it at parts. Just try to recreate what would have happened to that page over the years until today.
Then you can scan it after its dried up and play around with the contrast in photoshop, change the layer settings, put a yellowish background, that sort of thing.
I did it with this one and it turned out like this:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v254/bk7600/examplespage.jpg

Hope that helps! I don't think there's only "one" way to do it. Experiment and see what happens.

[Dirk]

Experiment and see what happens.

Isn't all art based on that? And what we see is what will come out of many experiments.

[jfrancis]

It's not paper, I realize, but while we're on the general topic . . .

http://www.digitalartform.com/archives/images/crackleMedium_1.jpg

http://www.digitalartform.com/archives/2005/06/age_your_digita.html

[brkofdon]

spilling coffee can get those nice brown/old/vintage colors going...just a small addition

[baquitania]

I really liked this as a problem solver, so here's what I came up with:

1) Went online and google imaged the word "parchment"
2) Took that into grayscale, put an elipse selection over it of a decent size,112 px wide
3) Inversed the selection, erased the outside of the elipse
4) Inversed again, copied it, turned the opacity in layers to 0%
5) Pasted in my copied elipse, hit edit, define brush pattern, named it parchment
6) Opened a new file, chose my brush and a bright yellow, filled in page
7) Enlarged brush for textures, and screened and mulitplied at various sizes
8) Then pasted over a flat character I'm working on...

Here's the results, ofcourse you can change your colors to suit your taste...

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b353/baquitania/ssg%20oct/9c.jpg

Hope that helps.

Baq