Adding some “reality” to brushes splats and journaling!

I often see incredible pages at galleries but
when I take a closer look at some of them,
I see that the fonts, paints and splat paints don’t follow the texture of the paper…
Is like the brushes and fonts are “stoned” without being integrated
into the texture of the paper where they are applied.

Here’s a little PS trick that I learned years ago researching
at the internet to add some “reality” to the brushes splats and journaling!

Blend two Layers with Blend If:
Take any background you want and put text or a picture on it.

1) First I opened a crumpled paper texture background to illustrate the tutorial.



2) Second I placed my text layer above the paper layer. I used a bold basic font – ARB 85 Poster Script.



3) We need to access Photoshop’s Blending Options next:​

• We could go up to the Layer menu at the top of the screen, select Layer Style and then select Blending Options​
• With the type layer selected in the Layers palette, click on the Add Layer Style icon at the bottom of the Layers palette:​

Click the “Add Layer Style” icon at the bottom of the Layers palette:



We want the option at the very top of the list, Blending Options. Click on it to select it:


Select the Blending Options from the top of the layer styles list.

This is where most of the magic happens.
This brings up the Layer Style dialog box set to the Blending Options, and the “Blend If” sliders we’re looking for are at the very bottom:


The Layer Style dialog box with the “Blend If” sliders in the bottom center.

Drag The Black And White Sliders In Towards The Center To Blend The Layers:

Let’s take a closer look at the Blend If slider bars:


We'll be manipulating the arrows.

Photoshop’s Blend If slider bars in the Blending Options:

There’s two Blend If slider bars. They both have a gradient inside them running from black on the left to white on the right, and they both have little black and white sliders on either end. But while they both look the same, they do slightly different things.
Since I had my type layer selected, if I move the sliders on the top bar in towards the center, I’ll be making areas in my type disappear. If I move the bottom bar’s sliders in towards the center, I’ll be making areas of my paper show through my type. Moving the white slider affects the lightest areas in the image, and moving the black slider affects the darkest areas. The further I move the sliders, the greater the tonal range that’s affected.

To make the type look as if it was writen onto the crumpled kraft background behind it so I need some of the paper to show through my type.
Since I have my type layer selected in the Layers palette, and my crumpled kraft background is on the layer underneath it, I’m going to move the sliders on the bottom Blend If bar in towards the center to force some of the paper to show through my type. I’ll start by moving the black slider towards the center:

The black arrow towards the right:

Dragging the bottom Blend If black slider to the right.

As I drag the black slider to the right, the darker areas and Reliefs of the crumpled kraft background begin to show through my text:


The darker areas and Reliefs in the crumpled kraft background are now showing through my text.

That is almost finish!
The areas where the crumpled kraft background is showing through the type are too harsh.



It’s either the text showing 100% or the paper behind it showing 100%. I need more of a subtle transition between the two to smooth things out and make it look more realistic, and I’ll do that next.

Smooth Out The Blending By Splitting The Slider Bars In Two:
To smooth out the blending and create more of a transition between the two layers, I’m going to hold down the Alt(Win) / Option (Mac) key and drag the black slider back towards the left. Holding down the Alt/Option key causes the slider to split in half, as we can see here:


Hold down Alt (Win) / Option (Mac) to split the sliders in half and create smooth transitions in the blending.

With the black slider now split in two, the half on the left is where the blending begins, the half on the right is where the blending reaches 100%, and the area in between is the transition area. I can now drag both halves independently of each other until I’m happy with the results.

Here’s my image after dragging the black slider to the right to force the darker parts and Reliefs of the crinkled kraft background to show through the type, then splitting the slider in two and dragging the left half of the slider back towards the left to smooth out the transition.



I’m going to do the same thing with the bottom white slider to cause some lighter areas and Reliefs in the crinkled kraft backgroundto show through my text. First, I’ll drag the white slider to the left until I’m happy with how much of the paper is showing through:

Slide the right arrow towards the left until the text starts to disappear:


Dragging the bottom white slider to cause some of the lighter areas in the paper to show through the text.
Then I’ll hold down my Alt (Win) / Option (Mac) key to split the white slider in half and drag the right half back towards the right to create another nice transition between the two layers:



Holding down Alt (Win) /Option (Mac) to split the white slider in half and drag the right half back towards the right.

4) Now I used the same technique on some splatters!



5) I just repeated all the steps of the 3) adjusting the arrows until I reached the desired effect.

Sometimes you will need to do the 6 and 7 steps:
6) Set the Blend Mode of the Text and Splats layers to Linear Burn and the Fill to 75% in the Layers panel.



7) Create a new Curves Adjustment Layer and give it a white Layer Mask.
Drag the center of the curve down and to the right to darken your image.

Using a large, soft brush, paint black in the center of the Layer Mask so the Curves Adjustment Layer only affects the outer edges of you image.


8) And “Voilá”:



I’ve moved both the black and white sliders in towards the center to force some of the crinkled kraft background to show through the type, then split the sliders in half to smooth out the transitions between the two layers.

Here’s the original image with the type above it before I used the Blend If sliders:



And here here is the final and more realistic looking result:



Another sample using a wood background:



I use it in almost everything I wrote and paint on my pages! Even on my Kits previews!





Source:
PS helpx adobe, design tutsplus, Photoshop Essentials, Designpanoply​

 

Ohhh that's fantastic!!! I'm really a when dealing with PSE...

@cfile THANKS!!! Where can we find this style? Can you add it here to help the PSE users?

 

Thanks for sharing!!!!