Old Paper / Faded Text

[GameSmith]

I have just started on the main board of a new board-game I am working on. I want it to look like a historic town map and have been experimenting with techniques for old paper/faded ink.

This is what I have so far, if you have any suggestions that don't involve tea and a scanner please let me know. It was done in gimp and is basically a solid yellowish colour with a bunch of multiply layers to give it texture and then a ink layer with a noise mask.

[Gidde]

You may want to brown up the text a bit. You've got good ink-cracking, but the text looks like it's faded to green, rather than brown, and most old inks (iirc) fade to brown.

[waldronate]

A bit of paper bleed on the ink might help. Apply a small blur and then use a paper texture as the layer mask. The attached image shows what I got with a few difference clouds to make the background, fibers to make the paper texture, brown text, and a slight outer glow.

[Tear]

I use the same basic steps that waldronate describes.
A slight outer blur on the text to let it bleed into the paper texture and a layer mask to make parts of the text more transparent.
I also usually start with some cloud pattern in the layer mask, but I tend to paint into the mask to make it less random.
I also often use a copy of the text layer on top of the first one, so I can combine multiply with overlay at different opacity settings.

[GameSmith]

Thanks for the suggestions, played round a bit more and got closer to the look I am after. I don't want it to look like fantasy parchment, more like a very old printed map.

[Tear]

I think the same basic rules would apply for printed text.
Here is the same image with a different font and different colors:

[Gidde]

@Tear: That is simply gorgeous. Thanks for the tips on how you go about doing that. Which font is that handwriting, btw?

@GameSmith: That looks good, but it's still very green to my eye.

[GameSmith]

@Tear: That is simply gorgeous. Thanks for the tips on how you go about doing that. Which font is that handwriting, btw?

Agreed, the higher reputation than post count is well deserved.

@GameSmith: That looks good, but it's still very green to my eye.

I think my monitor might need calibrating, looking at it again on another monitor and your right it does look decidedly green.

[Tear]

Which font is that handwriting, btw?

In Photoshop it shows up as "Jellyka, Saint-Andrew's Queen".

[RobA]

Here is a tut on making grungy old paper in gimp (from waaaaaaaaaay back, post 533!)

http://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=533

-Rob A>