How to Tear Up a Photo in Photoshop

Did you know that you could add a torn up effect on a photo with Photoshop? In this tutorial I will show you how to do this!

Step 1:

I picked up the photo of Lee Major to tear up. Duplicate the layer and select the blending method as ‘Screen’. The image should look brighter.
Attachment 1685
Step 2:

Double click on the duplicated layer to open the ‘Layer Style’ window and click on ‘Drop shadow’. Choose the blending mode ‘Multiply’ and lower down the opacity. Now add ‘Inner Shadow’ and ‘Inner Glow’ effects; use multiply blending mode, low opacity and black color. Now click on ‘Bevel and Emboss’ tab and set the depth to 13% and the shadow mode to ‘Lighten’. Follow these screen shots for guidance:
Attachment 1686
Attachment 1687
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Attachment 1689
Step 3:

Now find some images of torn paper and cardboard from Google images and place them in your Photoshop document.
Step 4:

The way we lay out the torn paper outlines how the photo will be torn. Click on ‘Layer 2’ in the layer panel while holding down the ‘Control’ key and the shape of the torn paper will be selected. Now click on ‘Layer 1’ or whatever layer contains the photo. The selection is now covering the area of the photo; press ‘Control + X’ on your keyboard to cut the area and paste it on top of all layers.
Step 5:

Follow the same method for the other torn papers and cut the photo according to the shapes.

Step 6:

Now select the layer on top and double click it to open the ‘Layer Style’ window. Add a drop shadow effect and repeat the same effect for other layers that contain parts of the photo. You can also add some Gaussian blur effect to the torn papers in order to lighten the background. The photo seems a little too bright so I also placed a new level adjustment layer on top and darkened the photo.
Tear away!