Time for a little tutorial! Today we’ll be creating the peeled paper effect. It is very similar and actually based on the effect you can see on the Photoshop Wiki. I hope you will enjoy it!

Step 1:

We begin the tutorial by creating a new document with the dimensions of 500px by 500px. Fill the background with #3d332a.

Step 2:

To start of, we’ll be creating the figure. As you can see it’s a rectangle with at the bottom a rounded corner on the left which goes on with a diagonal to the right. We take the Rectangle Tool (U) and create a rectangle like in the example. We’ll change the color afterwards, for now only the shape is important.

Step 3:

So we have our rectangle now. Let’s begin sculpturing it to the correct shape. Take the Direct selection tool (A) and click on our white rectangle. It is probably best if you zoom in (300%) at the left corner at the bottom for this step. As you can see it is a very straight corner right now and we want to make it a rounded one, so we have to add another Anchor point. We’ll do this by taking the Pen tool (P) and as our rectangle is still selected, it will automatically take the ‘Add Achor Point Tool’. Now add an achor point above the other, simply by clicking on the spot where you want it.

Step 4:

Next we take the Direct selection tool (A) again and we move the anchor point we just created a few pixels upwards. (Pressing the shift-button while moving it upwards helps you keeping the point on the same line)

Then we take the Anchor Point from the left bottom corner and drag it to the point as seen on the picture below. As you can see it creates a rounded corner.

Our basic shape is ready now. Let’s move on and create the turned paper part.

Step 5:

First of all, let’s change the color of our rectangle to #b61f00. If you compare the left bottom corner to the final picture, you notice that isn’t perfect yet. So you should click it again with the Direct selection tool (A) and play a little with the position of the anchor points. Besides that, you can make the rounded corner look more perfectly by clicking on the Anchor Point you created earlier. As you can see some kind of string will appear.

If you pull on this string (while pressing the Shift button) downwards, you’ll notice that you can change the shape of the corner. Do these last two steps until you have something like this:

(it can help if you simply copy/paste this image into your PSD file and put it behind your figure.)

Step 6:

Ok, now we can really get into creating the peeled paper. Make sure you deselect (CTRL+D) so the next thing you’re creating will be on a new layer (call it ‘Turned Paper’). You take the Pen Tool (P) and make a triangle.

To create the curves in the triangle, we take the Pen Tool (P) again and create two new Anchor Points on the triangle.

Now start playing again with these 2 points to make the triangle more curvy.

The hardest part is done now. Now you only have to play with gradients and other effects to make it look like the final picture! Here’s a few you can do:

Step 7:

CTRL+Click on the deformed rectangle layer. Now create a new layer (SHIFT+CTRL+N) (make sure this new layer is below the Turned Paper layer), take this gradient and drag it upwards. By doing this, you create somewhat of a shadow behind the turned paper thingie.

Step 8:

This is an easy step. You simply add a gradient to your rectangle layer. (Layer > Layer Style > Gradient Overlay..) You take the black to white gradient and apply these settings: Blend mode: soft light / Opacity: 60% / Style: linear / Angle: 90 / Scale: 150

Step 9:

Another thing you can do is add a slight effect on the turned paper layer. You CTRL+click the layer to select the shape. You create a new layer above it and take this gradient and drag it down to create this effect:

Now set the blend mode of that layer to soft light and done!

Step 10:

The last step is creating the shadow by taking the Brush Tool (B) and a Soft round brush 45 px. Create a new layer below the rectangle layer and just make a straight line below it. (black as color) Now do Edit > Free transform and change height to 30%. Next you change the opacity of the layer to 20-25%. Now we have a shadow. Add some text and voila: