Photoshop: how to recreate this uneven noise effect?

Question

How can I achieve this kind of background effect in Photoshop?

I tried some tips using textures or noise filter, but I can’t get close.

I like that the noise on the picture has gradients and unevenness – it looks natural and close to paper and chalk or something (especially the window light).

I tried to paint the picture using paint bucket and gradients first and then applied noise filter above all. Also tried to apply noise using masks on painted layers to get a gradient grain effect.

All looks very rough and computer-made:

Answer 1

1. Add a new layer above the artwork layers, and click Edit > Fill - choose 50% grey.

2. Click Filter > Noise > Add noise. Set it to something like 16%, uniform, monochromatic.

3. Set the layer mode in the layers panel to Overlay - reduce the opacity slider until you get the effect you want.

4. If you think the effect is too harsh, you can apply some Gaussian blur to the noise layer, radius 0.5px.

Answer 2

First off, really nice work. Curious - all Illustrator or did you 3D model that?

As for the noise, it looks to me like some manual work went into the top one which is what gives it quite a bit more character than yours. I would look into Kyle Brushes probably the Photocopy line but Watercolors may have been used as well.

You're going to want to have the color shift ever so slightly between presses. Then I would probably also use it as a Mask but I'm not a painter and think those that are usually wouldn't mask; they would just pick a lighter color and continue brushing.

Start with your noise as you did, I don't think you need to do it all manually but definitely could use a bit of hand-done texture to get the same type of effect as the top one.

Answer 3

Here's one:

Actually only 2 topmost layers are visible.

At first the image was turned to black and white. Then made a copy that got grained texture (Filter > Texture > Grain, 50% contrast, 100% intensity). The grain filter made colored grain, so the result was desaturated.

The grained BW image was duplicated twice. One copy was colorized to blue and another to Orange. That was made in Image > Adjustments > Hue&Saturation > Colorize

A duotone simulation was created by adding the non-grained BW image to the layer mask of the Orange+Grain version. The contrast of the mask was increased until the separation between orange and blue was sharp enough.

The result is very different, if the layer mask of the orange is also grainy. Global color saturation and contrast suffers, but it was partially compensated by adding contrast and the saturation of blue after combining the layers to one.

Totally artificial look needs artificial looking original image.