In this Photoshop photo effects tutorial, we’ll learn how to give a photo a worn, torn edges effect. Creating the effect is easy, requiring nothing more than a few layers, the Eraser Tool, one of Photoshop’s built-in brushes, and some layer styles to help finish things off.
With our image newly opened in Photoshop, let’s begin by duplicating the Background layer. Go up to the Layer menu in the Menu Bar at the top of the screen, choose New, and then choose Layer via Copy. Or, for a faster way to duplicate a layer, press the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+J (Win) / Command+J (Mac):
Let’s give ourselves a bit more room to work by adding a little extra canvas space around the image. Go up to the Image menu at the top of the screen and choose Canvas Size
This brings up Photoshop’s Canvas Size dialog box. I’m going to add an extra 100 pixels around the image by entering 100 for both the Width and Height options in the center of the dialog box and making sure the measurement type is set to pixels for both. Also make sure the Relative option is checked so the extra space is added to the existing canvas, otherwise we’ll be changing the canvas size to 100 x 100 pixels, which isn’t what we want. Click the center square in the Anchor grid so that the extra space is added evenly around all edges of the canvas