Hello everyone.
This month I'm donning my top hat and tuxedo to perform a spectacular card trick for you.
First, I'll tear the card in half and then, without so much as a wave of a magic wand, I'll seamlessly mend it right in front of your very eyes!
Seriously, though, if you've ever gone delving into the many filters available in Photoshop and Photoshop Elements, you will no doubt have come across the Torn Edges filter.
As the name suggests, it will give you a super torn edge effect on your image. Well, no, actually it won't, not if it's applied directly to the image, that is; all you'll end up creating is a fuzzy monochrome graphic element.
In this tutorial, that can be used with both Photoshop and Photoshop Elements, I'll be showing you how to create a realistic torn edge using the Torn Edge filter but done in a different way.
Rather than applying the filter to the image, it will be applied to a layer mask. As we'll see, working in this way produces very different results; the effect does exactly what it's supposed to. We'll also see how filters can be layered within the Filter Gallery to create composited effects. This is a great way of creating the effect and it can be applied in many different situations. It also gives you much more control over the result than you would when using custom brushes or scanned elements.
