Tutorial: Grungy frame

By Dirk Metzmacher

In photography, but also in web design and other areas, grunge describes a certain image style where smudges, scratches and noise are the desired objective. Old and used is a very welcome look. It’s very easy to do a grungy frame in Photoshop. This frame can naturally be varied and refined according to your taste.

01 Distorted structure

Create a new document with the same size of the image that should receive the frame later on. Press the letter D on your keyboard to select the standard colors black/white and apply the Filter > Render > Difference Clouds. After applying Filter > Artistic > Palette Knife with the default presets, select Poster Edges. Press Ctrl+J to copy the layer (alternative: Layer > New > Layer via Copy) and use the Filter > Distort > Glass.

02 Basis

Change the blending mode from Normal to Overlay and click Layer > Flatten Image in the menu. Save the image as grunge-frame.psd. Open another document with the same size, press Ctrl+A to select everything in the picture, then Shift+Ctrl+N for a new layer (alternative: Layer > New > Layer), and use Edit > Stroke with Location: Inside so that a frame is created. The width depends on the image size.

03 It’s all in the frame

The Filter > Distort > Displace with the standard presets and the grunge-frame.psd make a smudged, dirty frame that you can refine by hand with grunge brushes or with another color. Since the frame is on a layer of its own, you can position a suitable photo beneath it and adapt it to the grunge style.