Thread: Mini tut on Photoshop folds

1. Ok, if we're going to do folds the first thing you should probably do is get some paper, fold it, and see what it looks like. Pay close attention to the darker areas of the paper. Turn it at various angles to see better. For your convenience I've already done that so let's get on with it.

2. Folds generally work best on antique-style maps since the effect gets lost with brightly colored styles. So make yourself an old, beat-up, grungy, weathered, burnt, old-lookin map. Here's what I doodled up:

1. We're going to need some guides so make sure that the ruler is visible (at the top of the screen click on View then click on Rulers). Click on the ruler at the left side of the screen, hold the mouse button down, and drag towards the middle of the image...it should snap once you get near the middle. Do the same except from the top.

2. Click the Rectangular Marquee Tool. Start in the very middle where the two guides come together, click, hold, and drag towards the top left. Now create a new layer, name it whatever you want but I'm going with “folds”. Reset the colors to black and white.

3. If you see the Paint Bucket Tool, right click on it and change to the Gradient Tool. At the top left of the screen you will see some options for the gradient. The first option looks like a small window with a gradient in it, it should be black on the left and white on the right. If you click on the little arrow to the right of the window another window will pop up with a bunch of gradients in it and you will see that this gradient is called “foreground to background”...change this to the second one (called “foreground to transparent”).

4. Let's start with the black color. Position the cursor somewhere on the center horizontal guide. Click the mouse button and hold it down, drag upwards – if you hold down the shift key on the keyboard it will drag straight up and not off to the side.

1. Ok, sweet. Now deselect, at the top of the screen click Select, then scroll down to “deselect” (ctrl+d is the keyboard shortcut). Duplicate this layer (on the layers palette click on the folds layer, hold the mouse button down and drag down to the little icon that looks like a square within a square...it is just to the left of the trash can). At the top of the screen click Edit, scroll down to Transform, then scroll down to Rotate 90 CW. Move this layer so that it fits flush to the left side. Hit ctrl+e to merge the two layers.

2. Duplicate this layer again. Hit ctrl+i to change it from black to white. Click Edit, scroll down to Transform then scroll down to Rotate 180. Hit ctrl+e to merge the two layers together.

1. Duplicate this layer again. Click on the Move Tool (it looks like a little pointer). Hold down the shift key, click the mouse button, hold and drag until the new layer fits flush against the right side of the screen. Hit ctrl+e again to merge. Duplicate again. This time drag down so that the layer fits flush against the bottom. Hit ctrl+e again.

1. On the layers palette, set the blend mode to soft light and turn the opacity down to 75%. If you want something more pronounced, like I do, then duplicate the folds layer. I set the opacity on this new layer at 50%.

1. If you want some additional folds that are crooked, duplicate the folds layer (or folds copy layer if you have two like I do) and then click Edit, transform, rotate. Grab a corner and spin it just a little bit. The result looks like the first pic in the thread.

Hope you all liked it and can follow it well enough.

Very nice indeed! I can think of a use for this already! Thanks for posting the tut, Ascension!

More cool stuff Oh Ascendant One!

many thanks for this tutorial, Ascension
I'll try it out with my next map ^^ as I was having problems with folds in my previous attempt
and your map is really awesome - the mountains are very beautiful

btw I had some free time and did a PDF with the tut for myself for easier use
the file's attached below