Unleash Your Creativity: Learn How To Make Stunning Digital Washi Tape In Photoshop Or Elements!

Do you love to add decorative elements to your digital designs? Then you must have heard about digital washi tape!

Washi tape - the Japanese decorative tape started as a traditional masking tape. Nowadays, it’s a popular crafting item and an essential part of the art world. Today, the tape has stepped into a digital arena and has gained immense popularity among the digital artists worldwide. Using digital washi tape, adding some creative touches, and sprucing up your designs has never been this easy before!

In this article, we’ve brought you the easiest method of designing digital washi tapes in Adobe Photoshop or Photoshop Elements. We know how much you love to add personality to your creative projects - whether it’s a digital scrapbook, an art journal, or creating printables. Let’s delve into the creative process of designing your unique washi tape.

Step 1: Create a New File

Open Photoshop or Elements on your system and create a new 12 x 12-inch document at 300 ppi. You can also customize the size as per your project needs.

Step 2: Create a New Layer

Create a new layer by clicking on the “New Layer” icon in your Layers panel.

Step 3: Select the Rectangular Marquee Tool

Select the “Rectangular Marquee Tool” from the toolbar on the left side of the screen.

Step 4: Create the Tape Strip

Draw the rectangular shape covering the entire width of your canvas. Select the Rectangle tool if you want to make a precise rectangle.

Step 5: Fill the Tape Strip

Select the paint bucket icon on the left-hand toolbar and fill the rectangular space with your desired color.

Step 6: Add a Design Element

Add your desired design element to your tape. You can select the brush tool, doodle tool, or add digital stamps to create a unique design.

Step 7: Save Your Washi Tape

Once you’re done with designing, save your artwork as a PNG or JPEG file.

Conclusion

There you go - that’s how you can create stunning digital washi tape in Adobe Photoshop or Photoshop Elements. With a little imagination, you can come up with endless possibilities of artistic designs, perfect for your creative projects. So, start designing your unique washi tape today and take your creativity to the next level!

This article explains how to create your own digital version of Washi tape in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements.

What to Know

• In the Layers window, hold down Ctrl or Cmd and select the tape layer. Next, select Layer > New > Layer.Select Edit > Fill > choose a color. Set Blending Mode to Multiply. Right-click the colored layer > Merge Down. Finally, set the Opacity input field to 95%. Save the file as a PNG image.

Make a Strip of Tape with a Plain Color

You’ll need an image of a plain piece of tape. Here’s one that you can download and use for free: IP_tape_mono.png.

More experienced Photoshop users may want to photograph or scan their own bits of tape and use these as a base. If you want to try that, you need to cut out the tape from its background and save the image as a PNG so that it has a transparent background. You’ll also find that making your tape as light as possible gives you a more neutral base upon which to work.

Go to File > Open and navigate to the IP_tape_mono.png file that you downloaded or your own plain tape image, select it, and click the Open button. It is good practice to go to File > Save As and save this as a PSD file with an appropriate name. The PSD file format allows you to save multiple layers in your document.

If the Layers palette isn’t already open, go to Window > Layers to display. The tape should be the only layer in the palette and now, hold down the Ctrl key on Windows or the Command key on Mac and then click on the little icon that represents the tape layer. This will select all of the pixels in the layer that are not fully transparent and so you should now see a line of marching ants around the tape. Note that on some older versions of Photoshop, you need to click the text area of the layer and not the icon.

Next, go to Layer > New > Layer or click the New Layer button at the base of the Layers palette, followed by Edit > Fill. In the dialog box that opens, select Color from the Use drop-down menu and then select the color that you wish to apply to your tape from the color picker that opens. Click OK on the color picker and then OK on the Fill dialog and you’ll see that the selection has been filled with your selected color.

While Washi tape doesn’t have much surface texture, there is a little and so the base tape image that we’re using has a very light texture applied to it. To allow this to show through, ensure that the new colored layer is still active and then click on the Blending Mode drop-down at the top of the Layers palette and change it to Multiply. Now right click on the colored layer and select Merge Down to combine the two layers into one. Finally, set the Opacity input field to 95%, so that the tape is slightly translucent, as real Washi tape also has a little bit of transparency.

Make a Strip of Tape with a Decorative Pattern

In the previous step, we added a plain color to the tape, but the technique for adding a pattern is not too dissimilar, so we’ll not be repeating everything here. Therefore, if you haven’t already read the previous step, please do that first.

Open the blank tape file and re-save it as an appropriately named PSD file. Now go to File > Place and then navigate to the pattern file that you’re going to use and click the Open button. This will place the pattern on a new layer. If you need to resize the pattern to better fit the tape, go to Edit > Free Transform and you’ll see a bounding box with grab handles at the corners and sides becomes visible. If you need to zoom out to see all of the bounding box, you can go to View > Zoom Out as necessary. Click one of the corner handles and, holding down the Shift key to maintain the same proportions, drag the handle to resize the pattern.

When the tape is covered appropriately with the pattern, make a selection of the tape as in the previous step, click on the pattern layer in the Layers palette and then click the Mask button at the bottom of the palette – see image. As in the previous step, change the pattern layer’s blending mode to Multiply, right click and select Merge Down and finally reduce the Opacity to 95%.

Save Your Tape as a PNG

To use your new virtual Washi tape in your digital projects, you’ll need to save the file as a PNG image so that it retains its transparent background and slightly translucent appearance.

Go to File > Save As and in the dialog that opens, navigate to where you want to save your file, select PNG from the drop-down list of file formats and click the Save button. In the PNG Options dialog, select None and click OK.

You now have a digital Washi tape file that you can import into your digital scrapbooking projects. You may also want to have a look at another of our tutorials that show how you can apply a simple torn paper effect to the edge of the tape and add a very subtle drop shadow that just adds a little touch of realism.

What Is Washi Tape?

Washi tape is a decorative tape that’s made from natural materials in Japan. Many different types and styles are now exported from Japan, both in patterned and plain colors.

Their popularity has grown rapidly in recent years and they’ve become hugely popular for use in many craft projects, especially scrapbooking. However, if you’re more into digital scrapbooking, you can produce your own unique digital tape for use in your projects.

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