Tutorial: Easy Grunge Borders

- BY Eric/Steel Frog, June 26 2008 -

Here is a simple method of creating grunge borders for your websites or designs. This tutorial is aimed at beginners, but more advanced users might just learn something.

Once you get the hang of this technique, you will be able to produce jaggy, grungy edges in less than a minute with excellent results.

Step 1. Create a new document

Start by creating a new document. Select File/New and put in 500px as both the width and height. Make sure your resolution is set at 72DPI and 8bit RGB colors.

Step 2. Using channels

Grunge Border Tutorial, step 2 Create a new layer and head into the Channels tab. Click on the Create a new channel button.

Click on the Rectangular Marquee tool. From the Style pulldown menu, select Fixed Size. Enter 400px as both the width and height and place the marquee in the middle of the new channel you’ve created.

Fill the selection in white and deselect your marquee by pressing Ctrl+D or going in Select/Deselect.

Step 3. Grunge it up!

Grunge border tutorial, step 3 Head into Filter/Pixelate/Cystallize. Enter a value in the Cell Size box; larger values will result in larger “jags” on the edges. I entered a value of 10. Click on Ok when you’re done. You should end up with something similar to the image on the right.

Hold down the Ctrl key and click on the channel’s thumbnail to create a selection. Head back into the Layers tab and click on your new channel. Simply fill the selection with a color of your choice and you have a grungy box shape to use.

Step 4. You’re done!

Once you have your shape, drop in some colors, maybe some textures and you’re done!

Result

9 Comments

Comment by Frankie Bones — June 26, 2008 @ 2:37 PM

nice tutorial! i found ur site on digitalpoint. congrats on the new design!! when are u going to get the video with sound??

Comment by steelfrog — June 26, 2008 @ 2:52 PM

Frankie Bones: I intend to post the completed video tutorial (with sound) in the next few days if time allows. I’ve never really dabbled in Video before, so I’ll be getting a higher quality video with narration as soon as I can.

Thanks for your kind words!