Page Curl Effect with Warp, Burn and Layer Styles in Photoshop CS3

There are many methods to create a page curl effect in Photoshop^R from using a commercial filter to the manual method. In this tutorial, I will show you a quick and easy way to create a page curl effect using the Warp Transform command, Burn tool and a few Layer Styles in Photoshop CS3. The image I used for this tutorial is a parchment paper that I created for my website. I felt that it needed more interest and decided to add a page curl to the lower left and upper right corners. This method can be used to curl the corner of any image.

Open your image into Photoshop CS3.
We will add a small gradient to the corner that we wish to curl. This gradient will create the illusion of a shadow under the curl. First we need to grab the darkest color from the corner of the image. Click on the Foreground color box in the Tools Panel and use the Eyedropper to grab the darkest color in the area you wish to put the curl. In the example, I took that darkest brown color from the edge of the parchment.
Now we will use the Rectanglar Marquee tool to select a small area of the corner of the parchment. If necessary, click inside the selection with the Move tool to move the selection along the edge of the image.
We are ready to add the gradient to this selected area. Click on the Gradient tool (under the Paint Bucket tool) in the Tools Panel. In the Options Bar, set the Preset Gradient Fill to Foreground to Transparent (#2) and set the Gradient Option to Linear Gradient. Click inside the selected rectangle area at the lower left edge. Drag the mouse almost to the upper right corner of the selected area and release the mouse button. Your gradient shadow should look something like this.
Now for the fun. Keep the area selected. Click Edit, Transform, Warp from the Menu bar. You will see a grid appear over the area. This grid has four small open square handles at the corners. Click on the lower left handle and drag the handle up and to the right to create the curl. Click the Checkmark on the Options bar to set the Transform effect and then click Select, Deselect from the Menu bar.
Now we will grab just the pixels that makeup the page curl. Click on the page curl with the Magic Wand tool which will select most of the pixels of the curl. Click Edit, Copy to copy these pixels and then click Edit, Paste to paste the pixels to a new layer.
Now, we will add drop and inner shadow layer styles which will add more detail to the curl. While still working on the top layer, click Layer, Layer Style, Drop Shadow from the Menu bar. Set the following values in the Layer Style dialog box. You may wish to adjust these settings to fit your needs.

Blend Mode – Multiply
Opacity – 62
Angle is -135
Distance – 3
Spread – 14
Size – 21

With the dialog box still open, click on the Inner Shadow and set the following values. Click OK to set both layer styles.

Blend Mode – Normal
Opacity – 50%
Angle – 32
Distance – 1
Chock – 0
Size – 0
Finally, we will use the Burn tool to darken the edge of the curl. Click on the Burn tool in the Tools Panel. In the Brushes Panel, set the Brush Preset to #13 and the Master Diameter to 13. Now, click and drag over the edge of the curl to darken the pixels. The nice thing about the Burn tool is that it only changes the color of non transparent pixels. If any pixels are transparent, such as the area next to the edge of the curl, the Burn tool will have no effect.