Here is the one about grunge brushes?! :) That may help.

http://www.threadless.com/profile/112483/Southdakota/1928/illustrator_brushes,_where_to_download_them_for_free

must of missed that,
it would be really helpfull!

stinger dont delete this blog cause im gonna want to find that one too

Spend about $30 on one of the "Machine Wash" image filter collections at Font Diner. Lotsa cool stuff.

I'll copy and paste robsouls' tutorial that he e-mailed me, I hope he wont mind:

1) Created clean art in AI

2) Scanned in a crinkled piece of paper with scratches and dirt on it
into Photoshop. Adjusted the contrast ratio to get black blacks and
white whites, no greys. You may want to apply a basic Photoshop
filter (either in in RGB mode or grayscale in order to have access to
more filters) to "roughen" up the image a little more. Sometimes I
also draw a couple of thin verticle lines with the pencil tool, most
distressing will have verticle lines flowing through it. You could
also drop the dpi to a lo-res to get more agitated objects.

3) Use your magic wand and select either the blacks or white space
(positive or neg space), right click selection (on a mac, hold down
the control key and left click to get right click options) and select
"change to work path". You'll want the most detail, so select the
lowest numeric value. I think the lowest numeric value is like .01 or
something. You might also want to slect all the object with one click
of the magic wand, so uncheck Contiguous. Now you have converted your selection to a work path.

4) Use your Path Selection Tool (a) to select the entire work path and
Copy (cmd + c). Depending how much RAM you have, you might want to only select portions as opposed to all the work paths, you might have a very complex object that has up to or more than 23,000 anchor
points!

5) Open a new Illustrator file and paste the object (cmd + v). Choose
editable. It'll paste in without a stoke or fill, apply a fill. Save
the file. Again, this process can draw up a lot of RAM but now you
have an ugly object that you can use on any of your files. You could
also potentially create an Illustrator brush out of it, which I've
never pursued but it is possible if it is a small textured object.

One other thing that I did to create more of a unique image is to take
the clean line art before applying the vector filter over it in
Illustrator, change all art to a black fill/stroke on a white surface,
export it as a grayscale 300dpi (maybe even 200dpi) jpg which I then
opened in Photoshop, used the Magic Wand, converted to Work Path,
copied and pasted back into Illustrator. This allowed for some
degeneration of the line art.

wow.

hmmm, it fucked up all the paragraphs when I posted that

still very understandable

Wow, that is very nice. Thanks tesco, I will have to give that a try soon!

thank robsoul, I followed this to the letter and got great results

i'll be an idiot.
what is distressed look, exactly?

gimme an example, por favor.

rgb shirt - old worn look

like this

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d186/supamarkit/-1.jpg

thanks

yup!

To make a distress that can be dropped into Illustrator at any time:

Picking up at step 3 of Robsoul's tutorial (which is great, BTW)

After you have a nicely contrasted image, change it to a Bitmap, and save it as a TIFF, 600 dpi - Diffusion Dither. After that you can PLACE it onto an Illustrator file (on top of any layer you want distressed), make it the same color as the background and, viola! you have distress.

I have done this with crinkled paper, burlap, wood, anything with a good texture.

Note that the texture will look kinda crappy displayed in illustrator, but if you print it, or save it as a jpeg or gif, the texture will be nice and smooth.

To make a distress that can be dropped into Illustrator at any time:

Picking up at step 3 of Robsoul's tutorial (which is great, BTW)

same thing, once you have your image, turn it into a bitmap - 50% threshold - save as psd

import to illustrator cs2, livetrace the bitmap - expand and ungroup and all of that.

select the distress image, go to paths - simplify - take it to about 97 or so, reduces all the points so its not such a huge file. then combine it all together with the pathfinder pallette

now you have a vector clean distress pattern - drop it on top of any graphic

you can also use any photo of concrete splatter brick anything really - cracks in the ground - the walls it all works

Good work guys, thanks!

Just bumping this for the sake of people who want to learn this as well.

BACK!

that's awesome thanks!

I was "distressing" (haha) about finding the right photoshop brush for it but this would be a much more fun and easier option.

Cheers - bump for new ones

happy to share my lenghty technique. hope others are able to use it.

what I also do is just save the textures I create in lone AI files for use on any other files. yes, you can also buy filters for photoshop.

my Ornithologist sub used the process describe above, although it's not applied to the artwork, just to the presenation background.

just bumping this so that if stinger's around he can put it under the tips and tricks section. i've used this method before; it works great.

thanks, done and done. I didn't even know there was a tips and tricks section.

It's newly added.

crap.... it's lost!

So, where can I find this tutorial?

Nevermind, didn't read the copy & paste instructions until now...

Just curious, does anyone already have a nice image I could use for a distressed look in Photoshop? I tried to crinkle some paper, but the results weren't quite what I wanted. I'm looking for something close to this effect...

machine wash image filters

Anything the resembles the sailcloth, abusive, or wallflake filter would be nice.

And another way to create textures is to scan in something janky as a grayscale, adjust the contrast so you get black blacks and white whites and once it looks good, go to Image - Mode - Bitmap - first pop up window:
I usually plug in 300 for my Output and select a Halftone Screen from the drop menu, hit OK

- second pop up window:
Fequency 300 (test this out, try 25 and the try 600)
Angle 45 degrees
Shape Round
OK

- save as a TIFF file.

You can now use this bitmapped TIFF file in AI, only the black part turns into a solid fill.

Lastly, it'll look like poop on the screen in AI, but print it out and you see what it actually looks like or what I do usually to save paper, to just preview it in AI, go to File - Save For Web. It helps just to peep it.

This method is very helpful and saves time instead of using giant complex vector images.

^ all the above is executed in Photoshop initially.

Wheels, email me if you want an aged file, I only have one good one to give you on my computer at home.

rgwgould@gmail.com

^^ Yes that is a good call rob, it actually saves you a LOT of memory if you use a bitmap tiff. And the beauty is that you can still change it's colour in illustrator.

ah, yes, I totally forgot to mention that tidbit of infomation.


jeezuz jan, you had a 2 page spread in the latest computar arts magazine. congrats you networking genius you!

hah, thanks mate!

Jan, you might want to copy + paste the tutorial bit under the title of the blog, I didn't even realize it was in the body of the comments when I recently opened it.

Thanks again Rob for both the tiff and the psd file!

Yeah I know, it was in there but it was worked with CSS. When I edited the main title the entire blog was deleted.

I added the C/P version again though.

cool, thanks dude. Also maybe add the TIFF tutorial, I don't think many ppl realise they can use bitmapped TIFF files in AI.

This paragraph is confusing:
One other thing that I did to create more of a unique image is to take
the clean line art before applying the vector filter over it in
Illustrator, change all art to a black fill/stroke on a white surface,
export it as a grayscale 300dpi (maybe even 200dpi) jpg which I then
opened in Photoshop, used the Magic Wand, converted to Work Path,
copied and pasted back into Illustrator. This allowed for some
degeneration of the line art.

Here it is edited:

Another technique for creating a more unique image is to export clean vector art into Photoshop. Start in Illustrator and change all art to black & white, export it as a grayscale 300dpi (maybe even 200dpi) jpg. I then open the jpg in Photoshop, used the Magic Wand (or Color range under Select from the menu), make a selection, converted the selection to a Work Path (right click selection and choose Convert to Work path), copy and paste back into Illustrator. This action will allow for some degeneration of the original art. I do this a lot with line art.

Here's another way to get a distressed look on your Threadless shirts: run them through the laundry a couple of times.

On step 3, it might be easier to do Select: Color Range and then select your blacks. That way you don't have to click on a bunch of things with the magic wand. You can also then choose how much black you want to select.

True, that's actually what I use all the time, the Color range selection.

But you can also select all blacks (or whites) with the magic wand by un-checking contiguous.

In the end, it's all about what works for you. And there are many ways to accomplish the same thing in Photoshop. I still have not tried Live Trace in Illustrator yet :/

I actually prefer making selections in Photoshop and then copying + pasting the paths into Illustrator. Live trace tends to group the whole thing, and I prefer to only "trace" the elements that I want to trace.

you can break apart the compound paths created by livetrace..

I just use photos of different dirt and tree bark for distressing. Depending on the amount of distressing I either leave it as a bitmap or live trace it and break it apart.

Yeah, you can... but I still prefer to do it in Photoshop.