Distress a printed image
Dirt combines coarse patches with fine pixel variation. Scratches add narrow vertical interruptions, while Ink loss creates isolated weak-print areas. Contrast grade pushes the surviving image toward a harder reproduction, the way cheap ink and rough paper compress tones.
All damage comes from a seeded coordinate function. There is no external texture with a fixed resolution, so the pattern stays stable between preview and download and never tiles.
Keep important detail readable
Set Contrast grade before adding damage. Increase Dirt for broad stains, Scratches for linear wear, and Ink loss for broken print coverage.
Faces, captions, and logos lose legibility sooner than textured backgrounds. Lower Ink loss first when small details begin to disappear, since its dropouts are the most destructive of the three damage types.
Example: gig poster treatment
Band and event artwork is the classic use. Push Contrast grade to 60 so the photo reads as cheap reproduction, set Dirt near 60 for handling stains, and keep Scratches around 30 so the wear reads as age rather than vandalism. Then step through seeds until the largest ink dropout misses the headline text.
For a subtler editorial look, keep the grade under 25 and use Dirt alone. Low-level dirt without scratches reads as atmosphere rather than damage.
Damage placement and seeds
The seed decides where every stain, scratch, and dropout lands; the sliders decide how much of each exists. That split means you can lock a composition you like and still tune intensity, or hold the intensity and audition placements. When a series of images needs to look like it survived the same storage box, share one seed and one set of slider values across all of them.