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When it comes down to effective texture creation, nothing can beat Photoshop in conjunction with a decent digital camera or scanner.  Not all of us, however, can afford such expensive hardware, and this usually means that we are left to cope with time-consuming image searches to find decent source textures.

One amazingly simple, yet often requested texture, is that of crumpled paper.   This tutorial details a remarkably simple way to recreate this texture using no special tools or filters.
 

Step 1: Create a blank document of any size with a 72dpi resolution and with a single solid-black color active layer. If you don't know too much about resolutions, 72dpi is default for web graphics and, to be honest, is the resolution used for 99% of all online Photoshop Tutorials. With your Background layer active in the layers palette, go to the main Photoshop toolbar, select the Gradient Tool, and change the settings to the ones I have below...

Step 2: Now, using your Gradient Tool, draw gradients of varying sizes and angles across your canvas.  Feel free to go crazy, as the effect you are looking for is built up slowly.   If you have done everything correctly, you should end up with something that resembles my image on the left.  Don't expect it to be identical, of course - like real-life paper, its impossible to get the same crumpling texture every time.

Step 3:  Go to Filter >  Stylize > Emboss, and press OK when the dialog pops up.  You've no need to alter the settings in here, as the defaults do an excellent job.

Step 4: Now go to Image > Adjustments > Brightness / Contrast. Increase your brightness by +75% and your contrast by +25%.  Press OK. If you are looking for a crumpled paper effect, you can stop right here.  Since we are aiming for a paper-bag style color, however, there is one more step that we need to complete.

Step 5: Create a new layer on top of the Background Layer (Layer > New > Layer), make it active in the layers palette and Edit > Fill it with a light brown color.  In my example I used #C6B3AA.  Now all you have to do is set the layer blending mode to Multiply, lower the opacity to 75% and you're done!

- Tutorial written by Man1c M0g

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