Creating Tape Strips with Adobe Photoshop

First you need an image. For this example, I am using one of the images I submitted for the Pixel Wrath Chapters competition. The only reason being is that I it was pretty much complete except for the tape so I had to do less work. =] I am just going to work with the top left corner of the image for this tutorial. Once you get the idea, you can use the steps to tape up the entire image if that is what you want.

So the goal here is to put a realistic strip of tape across the corner of the image. We will start off by creating a new layer and naming it tape. Now, with the Polygonal Lasso tool (press L), draw rectangular strip over the corner of the image. Set your foreground color to some shade of gray (I used #999797) and fill your selection (press Alt + Backspace). Drop the opacity of the layer down a tad (I dropped mine down to 40%) and you should have something similar to the following:

Doesn't look a lot like tape yet does it? We need some rough edges to similate it being torn off a tape dispenser. Using the Polygonal Lasso tool (press L) again, select some jagged lines on the end of the rectangle. I zoomed into 300% to do this.

Repeat this step for both edges of the tape layer. Now we have something that looks a bit more like tape. You should have something similar to this:

The next step is to add some texture to the tape. Create a new layer above the "tape" layer, name it "texture", and set the blending mode to Multiply. Press Ctrl + click the "tape" layer to get the selection. Now, set your foreground color to a darker grey (I used #636363). Select the Airbrush tool (press J) and spray some lines on the tape. Drop the opacity down on the "texture" layer (I lowered the opacity to 43%).

One additional step, create another layer above your "texture" layer, and set the blending mode to Overlay. Press Ctrl + click the "tape" layer to load the selection. Set your foreground color to a light grey (I used #D2D0D0). Using the Airbrush tool spray some lighter lines in the new layer. Drop the opacity down (I used 60%). You should end up with something similar to this image:

Of course, this will all look better if the image you are placing the tape on has a realistic appearance to it.One last piece of advice, if you are adding tape to an image with perspective, it is a good idea to keep in mind lighting and perspective of the tape as it would appear in real life.