Tutorial: ACHIEVE REALISTIC BURNED EDGES

By Lauren Bavin

Although this tutorial has been written specifically for Photoshop, the same principles can be applied to any image editing program.

Burned edges can give a nice rustic look to a lot of elements. Here is an easy way to create them.

Open the element which you would like to burn - I am going to burn a tag I made previously.

First we are going to select the parts of the tag we want burned. I am going to use the lasso tool

and draw a wiggly line around the edges of the tag- when you get back to where you started click on the starting point to make your selection active.

Invert your selection and hit the delete button.

Hit ctrl and then click on the tag in your layers palette to select it.

We are now going to use the burn tool to burn those edges- you will find the burn tool in the toolbar - it may be hidden under the dodge tool.

Choose a nice soft edged brush and use a dark colour for your foreground colour, draw around the inside of the tag till you get the desired burned look.

Go over some areas a couple of times so it doesnt look even.

You might like to leave it like this but I am going to burn some holes in the tag - - I am going to do this by making some little irregular selections in the centre of the tag and deleting- and then selecting the tag again - and using the burn tool just as I did before.

To complete your burned item - give it a nice drop shadow to really show off those holes.

Here is my completed burned tag.

This would be really effective in antique pages, treasure maps and countless other layouts.