How to create an aged, crusty-looking comic cover.
El Torres writes:
“Which resources do you use to give the ‘old scratched comic page’ feeling to a page? I mean, like ‘Heroes’ 9th wonders webpage, or that cool Invasion fonts ad?
I tried to do it scanning an old comic book page, erase the artwork in Photoshop, cutting and using the scratches as layers. But I lose a lot of “definition” in these scratches. No way.
I’ll appreciate any help. Thanks!”
You figured out the first step! I did exactly that — scanned an old comic cover that had as much white space as possible, then cloned the art out. Size it to match your artwork (or vice versa).
![](https://balloontales.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/aged_blankcover.jpg)
Copy and paste that image over your artwork, and set the blending method to “multiply”.
![](https://balloontales.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/aged_multiply.jpg)
Then I scanned an old paperback book with a cover that’s mostly black, to get the crinkles and edges. Erase the artwork areas, then copy and paste it over the art (but under the blank cover).
![](https://balloontales.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/aged_edges.jpg)
Set that layer to “Screen” and then scale it to fit the cover.
![](https://balloontales.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/aged_edges2.jpg)
For the finishing touch, add some halftone dots!
Create a new layer (also below the blank cover), fill it with white, and (re)set your foreground/background colors to black and white (or hit the d key). Then choose Filter > Sketch > Halftone pattern. Set the size pretty low (usually between 1 and 3, depending on the size/resolution of your art), the contrast near the middle, and hit OK.
![](https://balloontales.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/aged_dots.jpg)
Set that layer to “Overlay” and slide the Opacity around to get just the right intensity of dots.
It always feels a bit silly to use thousands of dollars of technology to make something look old, cheap and low-tech, but there you go!