Hmm, I haven’t really done any Photoshop tutorials. Strange thing considering I use it very often : ). So here’s one on how to add a vintage custom made postmark to the old postcards and airmail envelopes from my previous posts. It’s a cool way of personalizing them.

To begin I’ll be using this envelope image as background for the postmark. You can download it by clicking on it. It’s best to work with the original size and then at the end scale it down for your project.

For this particular image you could just add the city name to the existing stamp mark and be finished, but in the tutorial I’ll cover doing the whole postmark.

1.   Open the envelope image in Photoshop and click on Create a New Layer in the Layers Window (if it’s not open, go to top menu Window > Layers).

Grab the Elliptical Marquee Tool from the tools menu and drag out a circle similar in size to the original postmark on the envelope. Hold Shift to drag a circle and if you press spacebar at the same time you can also move the selection.

Give the selection a stroke – top menu Edit > Stroke and in the Stroke Options set Width: 10px, Color: black and Location: inside.

After clicking ok, press Ctrl+D to deselect the selection and you should be left with a circle just like below.

2.   Now we’ll add the city name on a circular path. First get the Ellipse Tool from the tools menu and then in the upper left area right under the top menu there are 3 options – Shape Layers, Paths and Fill Pixels. Make sure you have Paths selected.

Drag a circular path and align it more or less to the inside of the black circle just like in the image below (as before, hold Shift to drag the circle and if you press spacebar at the same time you can also move the path around).

From the tools menu get the Horizontal Type Tool and in the Character Window select a font. I’ll use Arial Regular 24pt (Narrow also works well); choose black for the text color (if the Character Window it’s not open, go to top menu Window > Character).

When you go over the path with the Horizontal Type Tool the cursor will slightly change.

When it changes, click on the path line somewhere on the upper center. Now it should become a blinking cursor and you can type your city in capital letters. When you are done typing, click on a different tool to exit or click on Commit edits button (✓) in the top area.

Now we’ll add a second text area for state or country to the bottom of the postmark. In the Layers Window right click on the current text layer > Duplicate Layer. With the new layer still selected go to top menu Edit > Transform Path > Rotate 180°.

Using the Horizontal Type Tool click somewhere on the upside down text to edit it and type the state or country.

There are two ways of flipping the upside down text to the inside of the path – one is to simply go to top menu Edit > Transform Path > Flip Horizontal – or another way is to grab the Path Selection Tool (A) and drag the text upwards until it moves to the inside of the path – (second way is also useful if you want to move the text along the path).

Now the bottom text doesn’t align with the upper one, so press Ctrl+T (or top menu Edit > Free Transform Path) and then hold down Shilt+Alt and drag one corner to scale up the path.

The bottom text looks a bit crammed so to separate the letters go to the Character Window and type 500 in the tracking box.

Type the day, the hour and year on separate text layers. Use the Move Tool (V) to move and align the layers. To make the minutes smaller select them with the Horizontal Type Tool and then in the Character Window click on Superscript.

In the Layer Window select all layers except the background (hold Shift and click them) and then right click > Convert to Smart Object. Rename it to something more suitable like “postmark text” by double clicking on the name.

Note: to edit the content of a smart object double click on the layer thumbnail and it will open up in a separate window; after making changes save it and it will automatically be updated in your original window as well.

3.   Create a new layer in the Layers Window.

With the Rectangular Marquee Tool drag a selection that covers the whole postmark.

Click on the foreground color to open color picker window and either put the color #3e3634 or with the eyedropper get a dark shade from the original stamp on the envelope.

Fill the selection with the Paint Bucket Tool (or Alt+Delete shortcut) and press Ctrl+D to deselect.

In the Layers Window make sure you have selected the layer you just filled. Now click and hold the mouse button on the “postmark text” layer and without letting go drag it over the Add Layer Mask button. Note: For this to work Layer 1 has to remain selected; remember to click and hold the mouse button as you drag “postmark text” layer.

Now you should see the text instead of the filled rectangle. Go ahead and hide the “postmark text” layer by clicking the eye icon and then click on the Layer Mask Thumbnail for Layer 1 to select it.

Go to top menu Filter > Brush Strokes > Spatter which will open up the options window. If the stamp is not visible in the preview window right click > Fit in View and to do a close up right click on the postmark > Actual Pixels. In the options put Spray Radius: 2, Smoothness: 1 and click OK.

Go to top menu Filter > Distort > Ripple. In the options window you can put Amount: 90% and Size: Medium.

Now the text should look something like this:

To get a smoother look go to top menu Layer > Layer Style > Outer Glow and set the options as in the image below. For the color use the same as the layer fill color (#3e3634).

4.   Now we’ll give the postmark an older worn out look – With Layer 1 selected press Ctrl+G to add it to a Group. With the Group selected click on Add Layer Mask icon in the Layers Window and then click on that layer mask to select it.

Now you will need a grunge brush. You can use your own – or if you don’t have any installed you can download this one here. (abr) (zip file 3.8mb)

Brush Installation Instructions »

• The simplest way is to double click the .abr file and the brush will show in your brushes palette. The downside of this is that once you reset your brushes you would have to go browse again to the .abr file instead of loading it directly from Photoshop.

• The “proper” way to install a brush is to copy the .abr file to your Programs Photoshop\Presets\Brushes folder and then with the brush tool selected click on the arrow next to the brush options to open the brushes palette (or right click on the canvas). Now click on the small triangle in the upper right corner > Load Brushes. Browse to the Photoshop\Presets\Brushes folder and select it. Next time you’ll start Photoshop the new brush will be on the drop down list along with the others.

Close

With the brush tool selected right click somewhere on the canvas to get the brush palette and select your grunge brush. Make sure you have the brush color set to black and that the Group-1 layer mask is still selected. Click once on top of the postmark and it should give it a nice worn out effect. If you want to fade it out more, click multiple times. Now you should have the finished postmark.

If you want, click to expand these two additional tutorials:

View Extra Tutorial 1 – Heavier Ink Postmark »

Heavier Ink Postmark   It’s interesting to experiment with different filters and settings as well. There are a lot of combinations that work well. For instance here’s one more: Duplicate Group 1 (right click on it > Duplicate Group) and select the layer mask for the Layer 1 in the newly created group (you might want to hide or move the first group so they don’t overlap).

Go to top menu Filter > Stylize > Wind and in the options window put Method: Wind and Direction: From the left.

Then go to top menu Filter > Brush Strokes > Sprayed Strokes and in the options window put Length: 12 and Radius: 7.

And as a final step go to top menu Filter > Sketch > Stamp. In the options window put Light/Dark Balance: 1 and Smoothness: 7.

And now you should have a heavier ink splattered postmark:

View Extra Tutorial 2 – Wavy Stamp Cancel Lines »

Wavy Stamp Cancel Lines   Taking this a bit further, here’s how to make the wavy cancellation lines. Grab the Line Tool and in the options bar above make sure you have Shape Layers selected and put Weight: 14px.

Hold Shift and drag a horizontal line. Now either multiply the line layers and move them with the Move Tool (V) or draw about 7 lines like in the image below

In the Layers Window select the 7 line layers and right click > Merge Layers. Go to top menu Filter > Distort > Wave. In the options window put the same as in the image below: Number of Generators: 10, Wavelegth Min/Max: 500, Amplitude Min/Max: 5. NOTE: Entering a Min value larger than Max will give you an error so enter the Max values first.

The lines will not align so get the Rectangular Marquee Tool to drag a selection around the ends and hit the Delete on the keyboard.

To make the wavy lines look the same as the postmark go to Step 3 above and follow the same procedure.

Ah, the good old days. The Polaroid 600 instant photos have been around forever and despite technological advances they are as cool as ever. Well at least in the design world :). I mean who hasn’t played with a Polaroid template turning images into vintage photos? So in that respect, here are some high resolution Polaroid frame images (around 5100x4200px).

There are 14 unique Polaroid blank frames plus 3 backsides. As you can see in the screenshot below they have some stains, wrinkles etc. Share the post or leave a comment if you find them useful. Thanks!

Photoshop Tutorial – Framing Your Images »

Open the Polaroid frame image in Photoshop. In the Layers Window (if it’s not open, go to top menu Window > Layers) right click on the Background > Layer From Background

Grab the Magic Wand Tool and while holding down Shift click on the outer white and inner black areas to select them – press Delete and then right click on canvas > Deselect (or Ctrl+D).

Go to top menu and File > Place and select the image you want to frame and then hit Enter to place it.

Set the new image layer behind the frame – from the top menu Layer > Arrange > Send to Back (or just drag down the layer in the Layers Window).

Now depending on which is bigger, the frame or the image, you need to scale the larger one down. In most cases the Polaroid will be larger, so select its layer in the Layers Window by clicking on it and from top menu Edit > Transform > Scale (or Ctrl+T).

Hold Shift and drag with the mouse any of the frame corners. You can let go the mouse and Shift if you need to reposition it and then repeat Shift + drag to scale up or down until you get the right framing. Hit Enter when you’re done. – (Note: Holding Shift+Alt while dragging scales it proportionally from the center.)

Select the layer with your image in the Layers Window (use the Move Tool (V) if you need to center your subjects). Now grab the Rectangular Marquee Tool and drag a rectangle along the Polaroid frame.

In the Layers Window click the Add Layer Mask button

And you should have your final picture.

Additional Notes:

• To keep the layers together while you move them, select them both and you can either press Ctr+G to group them or you can click on the Link Layers button in the Layers Window.

• If you want to re-frame your image you can unlink the layer mask in the Layer Window by clicking on that small icon between them. Make sure you have the image selected and not the layer mask and you can move it around; the layer mask will stay in the same place. Once you are finished click again in the area between the image and mask to relink them.

Now here’s something very useful – high resolution sticky tape textures and Photoshop brushes. The images are scans of a few old clear tapes that I have peeled off some book jacket covers. Well, they’re not so clear anymore as time has turned them brown yellow, but now they make cool adhesive tape textures :). As mentioned before the images are hi-res – tape strip width is around 610px.

I have also put together 17 unique high resolution Photoshop brushes (around 2500px). I really like the way these brushes came out as you can quickly plaster a piece of scotch tape across a picture and get a realistic result. Here’s an image sample of how that looks:

Just as with these sticky tape brushes, not all of them have the desired orientation by default. There are two ways of rotating them. The best method depends on the particular brush and how you intent to use it; in the image above I used each brush on a separate layer on top of the picture and rotated them individually with the Free Transform Tool. The other way to do it is to select your brush and then in the Brushes window (Window>Brushes or F5) select Brush Tip Shape and rotate the circle as shown in the image below.

This second method would be very useful if you needed to use the same brush at a certain angle multiple times.

Check out the sticky tape textures and brushes screenshot below and the downloads are right after. Share the post or leave me a comment if you like them. Thanks!

Here are some high resolution photoshop brushes. The image sources for these brushes are from my previous fall leaves texture posts.

Being that the brushes come from autumn leaves, some have this veil like quality as you can see in the main image above. The photoshop leaf brushes are close to 2500px in size. If you are in need of some images as well you can download them here: part 1, part 2 and part 3. If you find them useful, share or leave a comment. Thanks!

Found a treasure map without a windrose? Need cardinal directions? then this could be useful ;). I made six vector compass roses, two basic ones with North, South, East, West and four that also have the intermediate directions NE, NW, SE, SW.

Also made some high resolution photoshop brushes from these compass rose vectors. They’ll definitely come in handy as brushes. So check them out below and have fun with your geographical designs! If you find them useful share the post or leave a comment. Thanks!