Written by Steve Patterson. In this Photoshop text effects tutorial, we're going to learn how to create a "worn and torn" effect with our text.

Here's the effect we're going for:

Let's get started!

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Step 1: Open A New Photoshop Document

I'm going to start by going up to the File Menu at the top of screen and choosing New... to create a new Photoshop document. I'll choose a preset size of 640x480, and then I'll click OK to have Photoshop create my new document for me:

Step 2: Fill The Background Layer With Black

Press D on your keyboard to quickly set black as your foreground color. Then use the keyboard shortcut Alt+Backspace (Win) / Option+Delete (Mac) to fill the Background layer with black:

Step 3: Set Your Foreground Color To White And Add Your Text

Press X on your keyboard this time to swap your Foreground and Background colors, so white becomes your Foreground color. Then grab your Type tool from the Tools palette or by pressing T on your keyboard:

Then with the Type tool selected, choose your font up in the Options Bar at the top of the screen and add your text. I'm going to use "Impact" for my font, and I'll type the word "FEAR". Then I'll press Ctrl+T (Win) / Command+T (Mac) to bring up Photoshop's Free Transform box and handles around my text and while holding down Shift+Alt (Win) / Shift+Option (Mac), I'll drag out a corner handle to resize my text and make it larger. Holding Shift constrains the proportions of the text as I drag, and holding Alt/Option forces the text to resize from the center. Here's my text after resizing it:

Step 4: Rasterize The Text

We need to convert the text into pixels at this point, so once you're happy with your text, go up to the Layer menu at the top of the screen, choose Rasterize, and then choose Type. Your text won't look any different in the Document Window, but if you look at your Type layer in the Layers palette, you'll see that it has now become a normal layer:

Step 5: Make A Jagged Selection Through The First Letter, Then Select The Rest Of The Word

Grab your Polygonal Lasso tool from the Tools palette. It's hiding behind the Lasso tool, so just click and hold your mouse down on the Lasso tool icon and then select the Polygonal Lasso tool from the fly-out menu that appears:

Then, with the Polygonal Lasso tool selected, make a jagged selection through the first letter from top to bottom. Notice I didn't say drag a selection, and that's because you don't drag with the Polygonal Lasso tool. All you do is click inside the document once with your mouse, then release the mouse button and move your mouse to create a line. Click again, move the mouse again. Click, move, click, move, and so on. Make sure you create a jagged line through the letter, not a straight line, since this is going to be our first tear point.

Once you have your jagged line through the letter, finish your selection by clicking and moving your mouse around the rest of the word to the right of your selection line, so you end up with the entire word selected except for the left part of the first letter, as I have here:

Step 6: Cut The Selection Onto A New Layer

When you're happy with your selection, press Ctrl+Shift+J (Win) / Command+Shift+J (Mac) to cut the selection onto a new layer. You won't see much happen yet in your Document Window, but in your Layers palette, you'll see that your selection is now on a new layer, and the only part of the word remaining on the original text layer below it is the left part of the first letter which wasn't selected:

Step 7: Rotate The Letters Using The Free Transform Command

We're going to create our first tear in the text. With the new layer selected in the Layers palette, press Ctrl+T (Win) / Command+T (Mac) to bring up the Free Transform box and handles around the letters (minus the left half of the first letter, which is on the layer below). Look in the center of the Free Transform box and you'll see a small target icon:

We're going to rotate the text a little to create the tear, and this target icon represents the spot where everything is going to rotate around. We don't want the letters to rotate around the center. We want them to rotate from the top left corner, so to fix that, simply click on the target icon with your mouse and drag it up to the top left corner. It will snap into place as you approach the corner:

Once you've dragged the target icon to its new location, simply move your mouse anywhere outside of the Free Transform box, then click and drag your mouse up or to the left to rotate the letters counterclockwise, creating a tear through the first letter as I'm doing here:

Press Enter or Return when you're happy with the tear you've created to accept the transformation. Here's my text so far with a nice big tear through the letter "F":

We're going to do the same thing with the rest of the letters next.