How can I make paper look old without wetting it?

Question

I want to make paper look aged and then print on it a picture, I tried with coffee but the results were bad, the picture quality is poor on the coffee paper compared with the white paper, the colors are really dull and it is less saturated. I tired to fix this with photoshop but nothing worked out, We don't have ivory/yellow/brown papers available in my country and I can't get it online too. I was thinking to buy maybe a fixative spray, I contacted all stores here, they don't sell it but they do sell a acrylic varnish mat spray, will that helps ? or I shouldn't be using an acrylic spray on an inkjet photo ? it'd be much appreciated if you guys can help me with an aging technique (it doesn't need to appear really old or something) just a yellowish/brownish color. I don't want to wet the paper with coffee or tea or anything because I lose quality

Answer 1

If you're printing, why not print the aged effect as well?

Print it as close to the margins as possible - your printer may even do borderless, but if not you need to crop (physically) to the aged bit. This doesn't have to be perfect; in fact it may be better done rather roughly, depending on just how old and weathered you're looking for.

If you do tea- or coffee-stain your paper, you need to dry it really well before printing, and get it really flat (e.g. iron it). This may make that an option after all.

Answer 2

May be you should try smoking it with a candle. It might help i am not sure. It can be done in many ways , smoking means as simple as showing the paper on top of the flame. Its better to fix it to a wooden frame or cardboard and then showing it upon a flame so as to prevent burning . Showing the paper alone might work but may burn the paper and also takes time since we should take care not to burn it. After smoking the paper we can smudge it with finger or cotton. I am uploading a picture here of a paper piece i smoked right now using a candle without smudging.(only a small portion is smoked).

Answer 3

If you have a candle or heat source you can try to hold the paper over it carefully and "bake" the paper to get it to a different color. You will need to go slow to ensure that you do not light it on fire, scorch, or get too many crinkles.

I have done this this make scrolls for a project, it works fairly well. If you end up getting some waves or crinkles in the paper you can try to lightly mist it with water and then put it under something heavy.

It might be worth it to print the picture first and then try to weather the paper as well!

Answer 4

stick the paper in your dryer with something heavy, like poker chips, the kind they have in vegas, not the little thin ones for home use. Or you can use racket balls or tennis balls. Use low heat or none at all if your dryer has an air dry setting, that would be best. Run it for about 5 minutes and see how its coming along, might want to go about 15. That outta add some years to it. Add some wadded up news paper to the dryer as well, for a little color transfer.

Answer 5

There are a number of options, depending on what you want to achieve.

If you want a very natural look, are not in a hurry and just want the paper to appear slightly yellowed/ivory, but not have a "handled" or "damaged" appearance, you can accelerate normal aging by using heat and UV light - a tanning lamp works, as does hanging the paper in a window that gets a lot of exposure to direct sunlight and periodically heating it even more using a hairdryer or ironing it with a hot iron. This will take a week or two, and will not work with acid-free paper.

For a more brown and "damaged" look, you can smoke the paper over an open flame. This takes some practice to get the amount of yellowing/browning you want and will also make the paper more brittle an more likely to tear when printing, so if you go this route, be prepared to waste some paper getting it right. You might also want to strengthen the paper after smoking but before printing by spraying the back (the side you are not planning to print on) with a thin layer of acrylic varnish.

If you want the paper to look like it was handled frequently, crumble it it up in a ball and smooth it out a few times, then sprinkle it with ash (from burnt paper, cigarette or dry grass that leaves a light grey or slightly cream/yellow ash) rub the ash in with cotton wool, then iron the paper so it is smooth enough to print on. The ash will colour all of the paper a bit, but the creased areas wil be darker due to the size (smooth surface layer) being broken and the fibres slightly frayed.

If you have a beige coloured pencil or dry pastel you are prepared to waste a chunk of, you can shave and powder that and rub it into the paper with cotton wool instead. This will obviously work better with paper that is slightly textured and doesn't have a glossy surface, such as paper meant for watercolours or charcoal drawing.

You could also use the method (also suggested by Chris H) of printing the look you want. If you do, I suggest you print the "paper" background first, leave the ink to dry completely, then iron the paper (on the back) to cure it a bit and then print your image on that.

Most of the other techniques are "wet" methods, so I'm leaving them out of this answer.

One last thing: Bear in mind that under normal circumstances a drawn image or photo will age with the paper it is on, so having a fresh, vibrantly coloured image on "aged" paper is going to look unnatural.

Answer 6

You could put it outside for a few days (avoiding the rain). The paper would soak up humidity from the air and would womple a bit - I mean, it would lose a bit of it's pristine quality - a part of aging. And if you left it in the sun, it would bleach a little. The weathering would also alter it's texture a little bit, too, and change the colours of anything written or printed on it.

Paper left outside would definitely look older than nice, fresh, clean paper.

Answer 7

At first color that page with deep dark yellow color (Crayons or water color). Then give it a very small amount of spray of black color. That should give it a nice old look.