Simple Curtain

Have you ever wanted to create a cool curtain effect for a background or some other sort? Well now you can! Follow these 5 easy steps to make a realistic looking curtain!

Step 1

First, start with a new document, my document size is 820px by 580 and create a new layer. In that new layer take the Rectangular Marquee Tool (M) and draw a rectangle about 260px wide and as high as your document. Fill it with 50% gray (Shift+Delete, and then select Contents “50% Gray”).

Step 2

While on your 50% Gray layer, apply a Fibers filter (Render->Fibers). Set the Variance to 10 and Strength to around 20. If you don’t like what’s in the preview hit Randomize a few times. Hit OK. Hit Command+T to transform the layer and stretch it to the width of your document.

Step 3

Go to Filter->Blur->Motion Blur and set the distance to around 550px. Hit OK and now you should have something that resembles a curtain! Except black and white, So lets fix that. Create a layer below your current layer by holding Command and clicking the new layer icon. Fill the layer with a dark red, I chose #B21418 now go back to the curtain layer and set the Blending Mode to Multiply. Now it should look A LOT more like a curtain!

Step 4

Create a new layer above all the other layers and fill it with 50% Gray, then go to Filter->Render->Lighting Effects and create two light sources one from each corner. Here are my settings.

Step 5

You’re done! If you want to have the curtain look like its opened just select the Polygonal Lasso Tool and play around with that and maybe use the Transform->Warp to add a curve on each side.