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Photoshop Tutorial 0008 - Creating Paper Textures Using Calculations

Need that perfect paper texture? Pressed for time and left your samples at home? No need to fear! You can whip up a batch of paper in Photoshop!

A brief, or not-so-brief, word about Calculations: We are going to use that former bastion of usefulness, that menu item that you had no idea how to use, Calculations. Located in the IMAGE menu, Calculations has resisted every effort of Adobe to get rid of it, because it is still very useful. The Calculations function works by combining images using channels of the same/different documents, or layers of the same/different documents. The results can be saved to the same channel, or a new document. You can choose blending modes similar to the blending modes available for layers, and set the transparency of the blend. End Note.

1. Create a new document. Set the dimension to 300 x 300 pixels, RGB, 72 dpi, white background.

2. Set the Foreground color to black and the background color to white.

3. Go to the FILTERS menu and choose Noise > Add Noise. In the Noise dialog set the amount to 58 and the Distribution to Gaussian, Monochromatic. Click the OK button.

4. Duplicate the image by choosing DUPLICATE from the IMAGE menu.

5. In the duplicate, we are going to make minor changes. Go to the FILTERS menu and choose BLUR > Gaussian Blur. Set it to 1. Click the OK button.

6. Now we need to apply another filter. In the FILTER menu, find OTHER and choose Offset…. Set the horizontal and vertical offsets to 1. Click the OK button.

7. Go back to the original image. In the IMAGE menu, choose the CALCULATIONS item. Set Source 1 to Untitled-1 and Source 2 to Untitled-1 copy. Check the Invert button for Source 1. You will also want to check the Preview button.

8. Set the blending mode to Hard Light and the opacity to 50%. Change the Result to New Document. Click the OK button to continue.

9. You should be able to see the texture, but things are still too dark. Change the Image MODE from Multichannel to Grayscale, then from Grayscale to RGB.

10. Now we need to mess with the LEVELS to make this texture a little more like paper. Open the LEVELS dialog (IMAGE > ADJUST > LEVELS). Set the Input Levels to 0, 2.87, and 200. Click the OK button.

You should now have a reasonable facsimile of textured paper. Still a little boring, huh. Let's add color.

11. Go to the IMAGE menu and select ADJUST > Hue/Saturation. Check the Colorize option.

12. Drag the HUE slider around a bit. The overall color of your image will change a bit. Set the Hue to 38 and the Saturation to 19. This produces a nice off-white color (very technical color terms, I know).

You can do further experiments, such as changing the blurring or offset of the source 2 image, applying more filters, or changing the blending mode or transparency. This is only a small subset of what you can do with the Calculations function in Photoshop.