Vellum, specifically patterned vellum is a rather underrated or underappreciated supply. I used to run into that even in my traditional scrapbooking days. A lot of people just don’t know what to do with it. Yet there’s so much you can do with it.

Note: The featured image at the top of this post is a preview of some actual paper vellum available at Etsy. Just wanted you to know it wasn’t any digital paper I may have created 😉

Plain or even patterned vellum is great to tone down a piece of busy/bold paper, make a pocket/envelope in which other elements can be placed, or to just evoke a dreamy tone, a misty look, an old-fashioned feel. You name it — it all depends on the layers and colors beneath.

Over the past month or so I’ve written several posts that mentioned vellum. Most notably, in my “See-Thru Title” post. And in that post, I showed you how to create your own simple vellum if you didn’t already have some.

But, I also I specifically said patterned vellum paper may not work well with smaller alphabet images. I still stand by that but it doesn’t mean patterned vellum won’t work in lots of other applications.

So, today I want to show you how to create your own patterned vellum with papers you have on hand.

Neutralize A Pattern

Creating custom patterned vellum is a lot easier than you might think. There are multiple ways to neutralize (remove color) patterned paper to create lovely patterned vellum. One way is by using the Eraser Tool. Another is to use the Magic Wand tool. Today I’ll show you how each work.

This technique works best with papers that have small, clearly defined repeating patterns having a sharp contrast with the background. And it’s also better that the paper doesn’t have any other underlying texture like canvas or woven fabric. There are some exceptions about texture but I’ll explain that later.

Here are a few examples of the types of paper that can work well with this technique:

And here’s a look at just the rose pattern turned into vellum:

Before I get started, just a quick reminder that I use Photoshop Elements (PSE) 2024. If you use a different version, some of my screen shots may look different than what you see on your screen.

I’m going to start with a blank 12×12 file and fill the base layer (Layer 1) with a bright blue color (#094eb6). I’m doing this so I can see how the vellum looks after I finish:

 Next, with the blue layer (Layer 1) active, I click the “Create a new layer” icon in the Layers Panel. PSE creates a new blank layer (Layer 2) directly above Layer 1 which is exactly where I want it to be. Then I fill Layer 2 with a medium grey color (#c0c0c0). This will be the base of my vellum:

Once I have created the grey background, I want to reset my Foreground/Background color chips to the default black and white by pressing the letter D on my keyboard.

I have this lovely paper pack that will work great with this technique; “Travel Edition: Mouse Papers” by Marisa Lerin at DigitalScrapbook.com:

Other than the plaids, any one of the other papers will work great. Patterns like plaid can get really tricky & time-consuming. But if you have the patience and the right plaid…it can be done 😉

I’m going to be using the multi-colored stars on white paper (fourth from the left in the image above). I just drag that into my file above the grey layer:

The next thing I need to do is make sure the paper doesn’t show up in the Layers Panel as a “smart object”. Way back in July of 2023, I talked all about Smart Objects in my “It’s All About The Size” post.

If you read that post then you already know that Smart Objects can be identified by the icon in the bottom right corner of the layer’s thumbnail in the Layers Panel that looks something like a white square stacked over a piece of paper. When using PSE, most anything that we pull into a file will be treated as a Smart Object.

And, I do see that my paper has the Smart Object icon in the Layers Panel. So, I need to simplify the paper layer. If I don’t, as soon as I start trying to make any changes to the paper, PSE will remind me that I can’t edit a Smart Object.

With the paper layer simplified I can now work on getting rid of the colors. First, as a precaution I’m going to duplicate the paper layer and hide the original. The duplicate layer should be active at this point.

Since this paper is a fairly good example of a colored pattern with a high contrast over the solid background, I could simply try to remove the background using either the Magic Eraser Tool or the Background Eraser Tool (available since PSE version 10):

There is a slight problem with the result that you can’t see in the image above. I no longer have the very crisp edges around the stars like I see in the original paper. Is it enough to cause a big problem later? Likely not very noticeable to most people.

But this only worked as well as it did due to the very high contrast between the stars and the background. There is a somewhat “safer” way to remove the background which I’ll go into in a bit.

I’m still going to show you how to turn this into a piece of vellum.

I ensure that the duplicate paper layer is still active and my Foreground/Background color chips are set to the defaults of black and white (Press D). Then I press Ctrl+Click on the duplicate paper’s thumbnail in the Layers Panel. PSE creates a selection around the star pattern:

You should be able to see the marching ants around all of the stars.

Now, all I have to do is press Ctrl+Backspace and PSE will fill the selection with white:

Now I remove the selection (Ctrl+D or Esc) and I can see the early stage of my vellum:

Now remember, Layer 1 is that bright blue layer I created in the very beginning. We can’t see any of that blue right now so clearly this isn’t vellum just yet. But I’ll get there.

All I have to do is reduce the opacity of the grey layer (Layer 2) to about somewhere between 75-60%. I used an Opacity value of 60%:

You can now see how the vellum has muted that bright blue. I don’t know about you, but I think those stars may look a bit too bright. So, I’m going to adjust the opacity level of that layer just a bit.

For this white pattern layer, I usually use an opacity of somewhere between 90-50% depending on how bright or subtle I want the pattern to be. You can experiment with the opacity on the pattern until you find a setting that works well for your project. This time I used 70%:

That’s much more subtle.

Note: If you’re following along, on the grey layer (vellum base) you can certainly go lower than 60% making it even more transparent. But I would highly recommend not going any higher than 75%. The color and opacity of the vellum you create should vary based on the background above which it will be layered. If you’re using a dark background, you want the vellum to be fairly light (less opaque). Conversely, if you’re using a light background, the vellum should be darker (more opaque).

Now, some “real” vellum looks as though the pattern is lifted a bit off the base “paper”. That happens because real patterned vellum is typically achieved by printing a pattern onto the original vellum. Therefore, the printed pattern is actually slightly above the vellum as in the image below:

That image above is a bit extreme but you should be able to see what I mean. Achieving that same kind of look on digital patterned vellum is fairly easy. And also optional…it all depends on the look you want.

All I have to do is add a slight shadow to the white pattern. With the white pattern layer active I go to the top tool bar and select Layer->Layer Style->Style Settings.

PSE opens the Style Settings Dialog box where I check the Drop Shadow box and use the following settings: Lighting Angle to 120 degrees, Size to 13 px, Distance to 8 px, Opacity to 35% and set the Color to a shade of grey that is slightly darker than my base grey (#8b8989):

I know, the shadow is probably imperceptible in that small image. Even zoomed in it’s very subtle. But that’s the whole point. It does make a difference. But you can decide for yourself if it’s something you want to do.

Here’s how my finished star patterned vellum looks without the bright blue layer:

I’m pretty happy with how this turned out. I am going to save this file as a PSD in case I ever need to make opacity adjustments for use on a darker/lighter background layer. You can choose to skip that step especially if you have storage space issues.

Then I save the vellum as a PNG file. If I save it as a JPG…I’ll lose the transparency! You may be wondering about saving a 12×12 piece of vellum…wondering if you’ll ever use a “whole” piece. Well, a 12×12 piece of vellum comes in handy if you want to mute a busy background.

I mentioned earlier that plaid patterns weren’t necessarily a good fit for this technique. If you have a basic (preferably black and white) plaid. It can work. And at first it seems like it might be even easier than what I did with the star pattern. Let’s take a look…

I have this pack of black and white plaids from Creative Fabrica that should work nicely:

I’m going to go back to the original 12×12 file with a bright blue base (Layer 1) and a grey layer (Layer 2). I also want to ensure that my Foreground/Background color chips are set to the default of black and white.

I’m going to be using the plaid that is fourth from the left in the top row of the image above. I just pull that paper into my file directly above the grey layer and simplify the plaid layer:

Now, if you read my “Glow Getter” post back in October of 2024 you might have a clue about what I’m going to do next.

If I set the Blend Mode of this plaid to Screen, I will see only the white part of the plaid above the grey layer:

Anytime we use the Blend Mode of Screen, the blending cancels out anything that is black. That means with any “pure” black & white paper, the black does not show up at all leaving only the white. Pretty slick, right?

There is one little quirk here before I can turn this into vellum. The Blend Mode of Screen only works properly if the layer beneath is at full opacity. If I were to reduce the opacity of the grey base to the 60% I used above, my pattern now looks like this:

Changing the opacity of the plaid layer doesn’t help much as I still end up with the darker parts that used to be black. So, using the Blend Mode wasn’t quite as slick as it first appeared.

Since that didn’t work, I can do one of two things. If I go hide the grey layer and just have the bright blue layer beneath the plaid, I can use the Selection Brush tool (and Select Similar) to select only the white part of the plaid:

I can then create a new layer from that selection, hide the bright blue and original plaid layers, and set the grey layer to 60%:

Or I could just simply go back to the original plaid at full opacity and delete the black. The same way I deleted the background on the star paper. This ultimately resulted in virtually the same effect. Again, that worked nicely due to the high contrast.

Either way will work. At this point it’s simply a matter of personal preference as to which method to use. So perhaps no easier than what we saw with the star pattern ☹ But in my opinion working with any white pattern on a solid color dark background is going to be easier than a colored pattern.

Now I can complete the vellum just as I did with the star pattern above. This time I set the Opacity of the white pattern to 80% so it would stand out a bit more. And again, I saved this as both a PSD and a PNG.

Oh, and here’s a layout of mine where I did use a 12×12 sheet of vellum to tone down a busy background:

For more details about this layout, you can find it in my 2025 Gallery.

The other thing about saving vellum at 12×12 is even if you don’t need the entire sheet, you can clip the vellum to any size shape/element keeping the pattern full-size, or scale the size down so the pattern is smaller.

Here’s an example of how I was able to get two completely different looks using the vellum I created above:

Do you remember I mentioned earlier that there was a somewhat “safer” way to remove the background from the paper I use as the basis for my patterned vellum? That’s where the Magic Wand tool comes in handy…

Magic Wand Tool

The majority of the process to create the patterned vellum will remain largely the same. The following steps are most important when removing the background on a more detailed pattern with less contrast than what I had in the star pattern paper above.

I’m going to go back to the original 12×12 file with a bright blue base (Layer 1) and a grey layer (Layer 2). I again want to ensure that my Foreground/Background color chips are set to the default of black and white. Then I’m going to pull in a lovely floral pattern that I found at Creative Fabrica:

Just as I did with the star patterned paper, I simplify the layer. Then, as a precaution I’m going to duplicate this paper layer and hide the original. The duplicate paper layer should be the active layer.

Then I’ll select the Rectangular Marquee Tool and just draw (drag out) a rectangle to include the part of the pattern I want to focus on.

My goal here is to select a portion of the pattern that encompasses all of the floral colors. There’s no “science” behind how large the selection needs to be. That will vary from pattern to pattern.

Paying attention to the repeating flowers I just try to be certain I’ve grabbed all the colors. If I make the selection large enough it usually works 😉

Here’s my selection:

You should be able to see the marching ants around my selection. Ensuring that the duplicate paper layer is still active, I click the “Add layer mask” icon in the Layers Panel. This is what happens:

And this is how my Layers Panel looks now:

Now, it is VERY important that I double-click on the duplicate paper’s thumbnail in the Layers Panel. I must do this as I need the next few steps to happen on the entire layer not just the mask! I DO NOT want the Layer Mask active!

I select the Magic Wand tool and use the following settings: Tolerance set to 32, Sample All Layers unchecked, Contiguous unchecked and Anti-Alias checked:

Now I just click somewhere in the white background:

Notice anything strange about the marching ants? Can you see how they’ve extended beyond the visible portion of the paper? I’m guessing you might be a bit confused by this. Don’t feel bad…you’re not alone. Most people think that once you create a Layer Mask that’s all you have to work with.

Quite the contrary. In PSE, even when a Layer Mask only partially hides a layer, you can still select the entire original layer’s area because the Layer Mask only controls visibility, not the actual pixel data. When you make a selection, it operates on the underlying layer’s pixels, including those hidden by the mask.

So, then your next question is likely, “Well why create the layer mask at all?” The short answer has to do with the selection I made around the pattern. I should have selected enough of the pattern allowing me to eventually select all of background leaving only the floral pattern without having to look at the entire 12×12 piece of paper.

With some patterns that isn’t always the case and it may require multiple clicks to get the entire background.

This made a fairly good selection of the background. But, since the pattern didn’t have the optimal contrast, there are sections of the floral pattern included in the selection. For purposes of creating a simple floral pattern for the vellum, this should still work out ok.

You might be thinking that all I have to do now is press the Delete key to remove the background. Not this time. If I do that PSE actually fills the selection with white. This is because I’m working with a Layer Mask.

Instead, I need to press the Backspace key to delete the background:

Then I press Ctrl+D or ESC to remove the selection and press Shift+Ctrl+Backspace to fill the pattern with white:

Well, that turned out lovely. But I know you have to be wondering what I’m going to do with just that small section of the white pattern.

Remember what I said above, the layer mask is only controlling visibility at this point. All edits are being applied to the entire layer.

So don’t worry, I have a full 12×12 piece of white pattern. I just need to right-click on that Layer Mask in the Layers Panel then select Delete (or Disable) Layer Mask and voilà:

There’s my 12×12 white floral pattern. Now I can complete the vellum just as I did with the star pattern above:

This time I set the Opacity of the white pattern to 80% so it would stand out a bit more. And just as before I saved this as both a PSD and a PNG.

I do want to quickly show you one other way to create vellum from some unlikely patterns or rather textures…

Creating Texture Vellum

No, that’s not a typo in the heading. I’m not going to be creating textured vellum. I’m going to show you how to create vellum using papers that are images of textures. Things like brick, wood or even water.

Again, I’ll go back to the original 12×12 file with a bright blue base (Layer 1) and a grey layer (Layer 2). I also want to ensure that my Foreground/Background color chips are still set to the default of black and white. I have a nice rustic brick paper from a pack that I found at Creative Fabrica:

I’ll be using the brick pattern shown in the lower left corner of the image above. I just pull this paper into my file above the grey layer (Layer 2):

The easiest thing to do with this brick is to change it to black and white. But just as the other papers, I need to simplify this paper before I can make any edits.

With that done I go to the top tool bar and selecting Enhance->Convert to Black and White (or Alt+Ctrl+B). PSE then opens the Convert to Black and White options:

I set the style to Newspaper. When I do this, I usually try to set the Contrast to around positive 80-85. The slider is kind of tricky so this time I ended up at 81. I click OK to confirm and my brick looks like this:

With the brick paper directly over the grey layer (with an Opacity of 60% & the blue layer hidden), I set the Blend Mode of the brick paper to Screen and the Opacity to 20%:

That could be a fun vellum to play around with.

Now you’re probably wondering why I chose that blend mode since it didn’t work out so well with the plaid up above. Well, there’s really no background to delete. And it would be pointless to try and select only the white. Besides that, without the “black” there would be no outlines for each brick.

I played with different Blend Modes and Color Dodge did make the pattern just a touch brighter. But really not a very noticeable change. The only other thing I tried was keeping the Blend Mode on the brick at Screen and using a white layer instead of the grey. For the white I set the opacity to only 40% and it did seem to look a lot better:

Next, I have a piece of wood paper that is already black and white (from where or by whom I do not know):

So, I pulled that into my file and did the same thing as with the black and white brick. Except this time, I set the Opacity to 40% on the wood:

And here’s what that vellum looks like over a moderately dark green background (#1f661e):

I did see if a white vellum base vs. the grey would have the same results as I saw with the brick. Here too it did result in a nicer wood look. But I was reasonably happy with either the grey or the white. You can experiment using white vs. grey on any of your darker patterns to see what works best.

And if you have any black and white texture overlays, these too can be used to create a vellum. I have a plastic texture overlay (again not sure from where):

With the plastic overlay directly over the grey layer (with an Opacity of 60%), I set the Blend Mode of the overlay to Screen and the Opacity to 30%:

And again, a grey vs. white layer was sort of a toss-up! Either way I think this could be a rather interesting vellum to use

I could go on but I think you get the idea.

I hope you found this useful and will have fun making some patterned vellum of your own!

More Tips

Remember that this technique works best with small clearly defined patterns having a high contrast to the background.

Simple black & white patterned paper like these at Creative Fabrica are perfect for creating patterned vellum:

Even though I did show you how to use plaid paper for a patterned vellum, I still wouldn’t recommend using a multi-color plaid. Try to stick with simple black & white plaids.

Grey shades are the most popular colors for a vellum base layer. Some grey colors you’ve seen me use before include #c0c0c0 and #89877a. But you can find vellum that has a slight greenish tint (#eff2ea). And don’t forget that using a white or slightly off-white #f0eeee, #fffef8 or #f7fafc can also work as a base. So, feel free to experiment with colors other than grey or white.

You don’t always have to fill your pattern with white. Try experimenting with other colors to see what kind of look you can create. Tailor your vellum to your project.

Any paper that is already black and white can be used to create vellum much more easily than a paper with a multi-colored pattern.

Also try using script/music overlays to create your patterned vellum. Again, any overlay that is already black can be “inverted” or simply re-colored to white.

Don’t forget to play around with shadows. Just remember to keep them small and use a shadow color that is a bit darker than your vellum base color. The one exception here is if your base is a shade of white. Then you would want to use a shade of grey for the shadow.

Thanks for reading this week’s Tuesday Tip. Remember, if you have any suggestions or questions please don’t hesitate to “Message Me“. Check back next week for a tip about Grungy Overlays. Click “Follow Me” to stay in touch. I hope you have a wonderful week!