How to get a construction paper look in photoshop or illustrator

Question

I am looking to create some graphics or logos that look and feel very much like that thicker colored construction paper in photoshop or illustrator cs6

Example here: http://dribbble.com/shots/908746-EOY-2012-Hot-Springs?list=users and here : http://dribbble.com/shots/133424-Marina?list=users

Any thoughts here?

Answer 1

Illustrator:

• Fill a shape with the desired color.
• Create a second fill via the Appearance Panel. Make the second fill black. Highlight this fill in the Appearance Panel.
• Choose Effect > Texture > Grain. The settings below are a good starting point. Lower the intensity if you want more grain.
  

• Now set this black fill to Multiply for the Blend mode and reduce the opacity so the grain is less prominent.

You can repeat the fills with various grain settings to enhance the texture if you'd like.

Photoshop:

• new layer above contents
• Fill new layer with black
• Filter > Noise > Add Noise and adjust settings so there's small amount of white noise.
• Image > Adjustments > Invert
• set Noise layer blending mode to Multiply and reduce the opacity to your liking.

• If you want this on a shape, then Option/Alt-click between the two layers.

• You can further enhance the grain by repeating the above steps and scaling the noise layer up to create larger "clumps" of noise. There's an answer to this question which will provide some detail on adding grain to images in Photoshop.

Answer 2

Those are raster texture images placed in Illustrator. Probably scans of actual paper. Scott's answer will do in a pinch but that's not what's going on in the samples you provided. They're a little more convincing than Illustrator's effect.

SubtlePatterns.com has some very nice paper textures to choose from. You could also try your hand and building your own tileable texture.

I've done a screen shot version of how to quickly create a tiled patten before. Here's the quick run down.

1. Place the texture of your choosing
2. Use a transform effect to move and duplicate the linked/embedded file horizontally with as many duplicates as needed.
3. Apply another transform to cover the vertical dimension
4. Apply a clipping mask to restrict the texture to your desired area
5. You can apply a background color to the clipping mask and blend the placed text into it

Answer 3

I think this tutorial will help you:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXaMpsZIk9Y

It goes into detail about how to create a distressed texture. It uses a halftone effect, but you don't have to do that.