Create an Old and Stained Newspaper Icon in Photoshop

Author: Jan Cavan, Category: Icons, Photoshop, Tutorials

Since I really enjoy the grunge style, I will be sharing to you another awesome tutorial using my favorite style! In this Photoshop tutorial, we will learn how to create an Old and Stained Newspaper Icon from scratch. We will learn some basic to intermediate techniques in Photoshop such as making use of brushes, textures, masking, the burn tool and a lot more!

In the end of this tutorial, you may want to save the final output in transparent PNG or ICO formats to use them on your websites or applications.

Final Product:

Materials Needed:
Coffee Stains Brush Set by Photoshopranger
Lost and Taken’s Stained Paper Texture (Texture #3)
Dafont’s Cloister Black Font

1. Create a new layer in Photoshop with dimension 250×250.

2. With the Rectangular Marquee Tool (M), draw a rectangular selection and fill it with the color #7f785e using the Gradient Tool (G).

3. On the topmost part of our rectangle, use the Polygon Lasso Tool (L), draw an irregular selection. This will add a jagged look on the top area of our newspaper.
After drawing the selection, hit on the Delete key.

4. Using the Blending Options tool, add a Drop Shadow to the rectangle with these settings.

5. Create a new empty layer. Select both this empty layer and our rectangle layer. Right click and hit on Merge Layers. This will flatten our layer along with its Blending Options settings. Using the Burn Tool (O) set to an ordinary rounded brush, slight burn some of the edges of our rectangle.

6. Open up the 3rd Paper Texture we downloaded from Lost and Taken in Photoshop. Resize the texture small and place it over our rectangle. With the texture layer active, CTRL/CMD + Click our rectangle. This will create a selection on our texture with the same size as our rectangle. Click on the Mask icon.

7. Create a new layer. Again, CTRL/CMD + Click our rectangle to create a rectangular selection on our new layer. Using the Gradient Tool (G), add a gradient on our new layer. Make sure the gradient goes from color #6c5d3c to transparent. This will add a bit more depth to our newspaper.

8. Load the Coffee Stain brushes we just downloaded into Photoshop. Using the Brush Tool (B), randomly select any brush from the set and add some little stains on our newspaper. Make sure our Foreground color is set to a dark brown color like #332a15 and Background color set to #62460a.

9. Using the Type Tool (T), set the font to Cloister Black and color to #000000. Add the title of the newspaper. Set this layer’s Blending Mode to Overlay.

10. Now, we will be adding the divisions on our newspaper. Using the Pencil Tool (B), set its size to 1px. Draw a horizontal line under our title. Don’t forget to hold down the Shift key while doing this to make sure we make a straight line. For the bottom horizontal line, set the Pencil Tool’s size to 2px. Set this layer’s Blending Mode to Overlay.

11. You may also want to add vertical line divisions.

12. Now, for the final touches, let us add photos and text to our newspaper to make it look more realistic!

You may also want to duplicate the newspaper icon and rotate the bottom one to make it look like there are two newspapers.

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