It's all around us; on billboards, flyers, newspapers, even T.V. Scratches, scrapes, dents and cuts. They call it grunge: that nice coat of wear and tear on an image that makes it just right. But getting things this roughed-up isn't as easy as it looks. We've put together a quick course in grunge to let everyone in on this design secret.



The first thing you need is a texture. Forget the preset brushes in Photoshop; everything looks better when you make it yourself. The best grunge effects start out with a real image of a surface. Wood grain, peeling paint, rusty metal, scaly bathtubs; anything rough, old, and worn out. You can even use abstract wallpaper. The more random lines and shapes the better. It's best to find images with good contrast between colors and tones.

Step 1: Image> Adjust> Levels
Open your image at the highest resolution possible, and convert it to grey scale. Now head to Image> Adjust> Levels. Bring up the whites and take down the blacks, like in the sample on the below, until all you see is a nice black scratchy pattern on a white background.



Step 2: Copy your layer
Copy your layer and delete the original background. This will allow you to get a transparent background in the next step.

Step 3: Removing white
Now, we want to delete the white in the image. Open your color selection tools: Select> Color Range. Select Highlights from the drop down menu. This will select all the white in the image. Delete the selected highlights.

Step 4: Inverse
Reselect and inverse your selection. Now we have the remaining pixels selected against a transparent background. To get rid of the grey tones, we need to fill the selection with black. Set your foreground color to black, and open your edit menu. Choose Edit> Fill, and fill with your foreground color.

You should have an all black texture on a transparent background. Exactly what we need. Save your file as a .psd.



Now you have a grunge layer to put over top of any image. Throw a photo underneath, change the color of your grunge, play with the opacity and blending modes, and presto, everything new is old again. Abuse a crisp surface, or exaggerate an already scruffy image. Or Copy sections of the grunge and past them on a blank canvas to make corner pieces or grunge frames.




Grunge effects in illustrator are a little different. We still make the grunge layer in Photoshop, but when we use it In Illustrator we don’t put the grunge on top, we cut it out of the image. Illustrator CS2 or Adobe streamline is a must, because we will be auto tracing the file we made in Photoshop. Some of the processes are fairly complex, so you'll want a fist full of RAM to speed your rendering times.

Step 1
Open your Grunge.psd file in Illustrator CS2. Select your image and choose Live Trace out of the Object menu. Use the Type option; it does the cleanest Job.

Step 2: Object> Flatten transparency
Once you have completed this step, select the image again and Flatten transparency. You can do this in the Object menu. Object> Flatten transparency. In the settings menu, move the Raster/Vector balance up to 100. Now right click on the image and hit "ungroup".

Step 3: Select> Same> Fill Color
Our grunge layer isn't transparent anymore, so we need to delete the white sections of the image. Select a white section of the image, and in the Select menu, pick Select> Same> fill color

This should select all the white in your image. Now just delete the white.

Once this is done, we need to put everything back together. Hit CTRL + A and then Right click and select Group. Now we have everything we need for a usable Illustrator Grunge layer. Save your file as an .AI file.

Step 4: When do we get to the fun stuff?

This is the moment you’ve all been waiting for. You have your vector grunge file; now it's time to use it. Find the Vector illustration that you want to rough up. If it is more then one piece, make sure you group it. Combine the two images, then put the grunge layer at the top.

Select the image and go to select> Arrange> Send to back.

Now select both the image and the grunge, and hit the Subtract from Shape Area icon in your Pathfinder palette.

This process will take a lot of time; up to 3 minutes depending on the computer speed and RAM.

Step 5: Flatten and Finish

Don't be alarmed by how it looks: once the cut-out is complete, there’s one final step. Go to your object menu and select Flatten Transparency. Use the same settings as before, when we were converting our grunge.psd to illustrator.



And that's it: vector grunge. Now you've got the know-how to wear-out, beat-up and work-over any sort of image. ConcreteDonkey out!