Creating old paper textures with Photoshop CS2

[Freehand 5.5]

I searched the forum, but couldn't find something on the question, that tortures my drying brain for the last two weeks:

How do I create beautiful old paper textures for fantasy like or medieval looking A3-maps (or bigger) with photoshop?

I've got Photoshop CS2 (loaded it for free from the Adobe site three days ago) and would like to know some tricks or good
ways to create the look of dirty, hand made, old paper.
Are there any tutorials or descriptions to do that? Or are there even free collections with ready made structures?
Do you have a hint, which photoshop filters or functions are good to work with?
Is there an alternative to photoshop (got an A4-scanner)?
How do you do that?

Please help me.

[- Max -]

You can google it to find some free to use grunge, used or parchment textures. Or doing it with photshop using base render clouds, then adding brushes work (grunge, stains etc.) to achieve it.

[Freehand 5.5]

Thank you - Max -. 'parchment textures' was the words I'm looking for (I'm not a native English speaker).

The problem with free google downloads is the size of it.
If I want to draw a map of size 42 by 29,7 cm (A3) or bigger, the download picture lacks the crisp I need for print.

Also, I found a useful tutorial right from this forum:
http://www.cartographersguild.com/tu...photoshop.html

[- Max -]

No problem Freehand but yea very high resolution textures are kind of hard to find on the internet. Keep your eyes open though, sometimes you will find some hidden jewels on the web

[Freehand 5.5]

Well, I have my eyes open. But I would be glad about some real links to good textures, if someone has them.

Some exact hints for making old paper in photoshop would be very valuable.

Perhaps I can scan a A4-piece and duplicate it a few times and put it together.
Has someone done that before? Does it work well?

Has someone experience in aging paper with tea, coffee, onions, water colors?

[- Max -]

I did scan real papers from old books and work on them with photoshop (using several layers with different blending modes and paint it soflty with stained brushes). I was very satisfied of the result. You just have to put them together and erase with a very soft brush (or with a low opacity) - grunge brush do very well for that) to avoid repetitive patterns. Oh, and don't have links in mind for now, I didn't really search on the internet now, since I collected a pretty good textures librabry on my PC over the years

[Freehand 5.5]

Looks like I have to work on such a collection, too.

And yesterday I just dived into making own brushes for photoshop.
Soon I got the impression that one can spend a 'lifetime' with that alone.

Btw, I like the texture of that map, you're working on.

[- Max -]

Yea working on fine brushes can take a bunch of time but when you're done, that's very satisfying Thanks for the map, the basic texture is a combination of 7 layers ( 4 for the lands and 3 for the sea )