Realistic Wrinkled Paper In Photoshop

What We'll Be Creating

Preparation

Create a new (Ctrl + N) document 800 x 600 pixels with a white (#ffffff) colored background. Right click your background layer and select "Layer From Background" from the menu, doing this will unlock the layer. Once the layer is unlocked add the following "Gradient Overlay".

We need a good contrasting color for our background due to the paper being white.

Creating The Paper

Select the "Rectangle Tool" (U) then drag out an appropriately sized rectangle onto your canvas.

Select the "Ellipse Tool" then left click on the rectangles vector mask in the layers window. Once clicked select "Subtract From Shape Area" from the top menu.

Drag out a small ellipse at the top of the square, the ellipse should subtract itself from the rectangle leaving a simple hole.

Now select the "Rectangle Tool" (U) and drag out a small rectangle at the top of the ellipse, creating like a keyhole shape but upside down.

Repeat the steps above all long the top edge of the rectangle.

Label your layer "Paper" then add a layer mask. Now select the "Brush Tool" (B), use a medium sized brush of your choice then with the color black #000000 start to color in the edges of the paper.

were now going to warp our paper using the warp tool, make sure your "Paper" layer is selected in the layers window then go to "Edit - Transform - Warp". When the warp tool is applied to your paper, simply just make tweaks here and there be careful not to overly distort the paper.

Adding The Lines To The Paper

Incorporated in photoshop are some ready made patterns in which will fit perfectly for a paper. Double click your paper layer and select "Pattern Overlay" layer style. Once the "Pattern Overlay" has been selected open up the patterns window (2), then click the top right arrow in the corner (3). In the fly out menu select "Color Paper", then finally select the lined paper from the list of paper patterns (5).

Adding The Wrinkled Effect

Create a new document (Ctrl + N) 800 x 600 pixels with a transparent background. Reset your background and foreground colors to black and white then select the "Gradient Tool" (G) with the following settings.

Once you've applied the settings randomly drag numerous gradients over the canvas. You will have a completely different set of wrinkles everytime you do this so don't worry if your image looks nothing like mine.

Now go to "Filter - Stylize - Emboss".

Select your whole canvas (Ctrl + A) then copy the contents to the clipboard (Ctrl + C). Head back to your original canvas then load a selection around your paper layer.

Quick Tip:

To load a selection around an element click the little thumbnail inside of your desired layer whilst holding down the CTRL key on the keyboard.

Once the selection has been loaded go to "Edit - Paste Into" if your using Photohop CS5 go to "Edit - Paste Special - Paste Into". Your wrinkles should now appear inside your paper.

Now load a selection around your "Layer Mask" on your "Paper Layer", once the selection has been loaded go to "Select - Inverse" then hit the delete key.

Finally set your wrinkles layers blend mode to "Hard Light", you should have something like this.

Creating The Paper Shadow

Right click the mask which was applied to your wrinkles layer and select "Apply Layer Mask". Now duplicate the layer and drag it underneath your paper layer, rename the layer "Shadow" then add a black #000000 "Color Overlay". To make the shadow abit more realistic were going to blur it a little, so go ahead and select "Filter - Blur - Guassian Blur", blur the shadow layer by around 2px.

Add a layer mask to your shadow layer then using the same technique as we did for our paper brush away parts of the shadow using the "Brush Tool" (B).

Adding The Pencil Writing

For the writing on the paper you need a decent font which is going to look like the text has been written, I'm using a font called "Segoe Script". Add a couple of lines of text to your paper using the color #abaaab.

Conclusion

That's how easy it is, you could take your paper further and add a few scribbles, doodles or even a cork board like my result. Have a play around and see what you can come up with, don't forget to share you results right here on photoshop plus.