If you have walked into a department store and saw shirts that looked like they were washed and worn, this "look" is called distressed. Who would have thought that the customer would like something that looks like you backed off on the squeegee pressure and ran out of ink!

You can create the distressed look in Corel, Photoshop and Illustrator using stock filters. There are articles about creating your own distressed look using Corel and Photoshop in the Technical Articles section.

When using the stock filters, the distressing is sometimes too uniform. We have developed a series of graphic files that have a more freeform/random distressed look that can be used in almost any program.

The following steps will work with text or a complete piece of art. If you are going to color separate the artwork you should give it the distressed look first. These steps are designed to work with transparent TIF files called Distress-Very Fine.tif, Distress-Fine.tif, Distress-Medium.tif and Distress-Large.tif.

1. Create the text or complete image in Corel Draw. It can be one-color or multi-color. Remember, if you want to color separate the image in Corel - use one of the Pantone Matching System color palettes.

2. Import one of the Distress.tif files. These files are transparent tif files. This means that you can change the outline and fill color.

3. Place the distress file over your image. You can size and move the distress file just like any other object.

4. Change the Outline color to White (right click on white in your Color Palette).

5. Change the Fill color to None (click on the "X" in the Color Palette).

6. You have now "overlaid" a file that put the white distressed area through-out the image and allows the original image to show through.

7. Output the image but DO NOT output a plate for the white.

8. That's it! The image now has the look of being washed and worn.

1. Create the image to distress in Corel Draw or Illustrator. Export into Photoshop as a PSD, TIF or EPS.

2. Or create the image in Photoshop. It can be one-color or multi-color.

3. Make sure the image has no layers (it must say Background in the Layers Palette). It can be RGB or Grayscale.

4. The resolution determines the amount of effect and size of lines. Keep with 150 to 200 dpi.

5. If the image is multicolor you must run the effect on the entire image before you separate it.

6. Open the original design and Show Layers (Window/Show Layers).

7. Open one of the Distress.tif files. In order to keep the file size small for internet download, these files are all Bitmap files. After you open the file, convert it to Grayscale (Image/Mode/Grayscale).

8. Copy this file to a new layer in the image you want to add the distress effect. You can simply click on the Distress files Background layer and drag it over the top of the file to be distressed. You can use the Move tool to change the location of the distressing and you can change the size with the Scale tool.

9. Close the Distress.tif file. You are done with it for now.

10. Select the Background Layer. Invert this layer (Image/Adjust/Invert).

11. Select the new layer that has the distress effect. In the top of the Layers Palette, select Multiply.

12. Flatten the layers (horizontal arrows in Layers Palette).

13. Invert the flattened file (Image/Adjust/Invert).

You now have a Distressed Look image.

Problems creating distress look for dark shirts.
When creating separations for dark shirts, you generally need two versions of artwork. One version needs to have all of the canvas areas away from the design filled will solid black. This is called the "masked" version and is the file that you will use to make an underbase or highlight white.

The second file you need has white in the canvas area. Steps 1 - 12 are for a 6 file for light shirts that doesn’t need an underbase. If you apply the same effect to the "masked" file, your distressing will be the opposite of what you need for the underbase. Remember, the distressing should allow the shirt to show through. When you distress the image for light shirts you are basically placing white voids over the image. When you distress the underbase version you will need to make these voids black (as if it was the shirt showing through).

The other problem is that when you click and drag the distress layer over the image to be distressed, you may not place it in the exact sample place every time. This means if you simply apply the distress file to a "masked" version, the distressing will not be exact.

The simple way to do this is to first follow steps 1 - 9. Next, DUPLICATE the file and one the original file, complete steps 10 - 13.

For the duplicated file, mask around the image with black so the canvas area is solid black.

Next, skip to step 11 (do not invert the original) and do not do step 13 (do not invert again). You now have black distressing. When this file is inverted to make an underbase, the distressing will be white.

1. Open or create any file in Illustrator.

2. Go to EDIT - PLACE, and then select the distress.tif file.

3. Move tif to cover graphic.

4. By default, tif will open with a fill color of black. Change the fill to white, or any non-printing color.

5. To change the look you can distort the file, rotate it, use multiple copies, etc, etc.

6. That's it!

It's that simple! You can use your normal mesh selection, but to enhance the effect go to a higher mesh and reduce your ink so when the shirt is washed the cotton fibers will fluff and give it more of a worn look. You can even get a little crazy and run the presses at full speed with light squeegee pressure. Hey, you can even give them the misprints!