Using a broken glass effect on a scrapbook layout can have a very dramatic effect. Take a look at this layout which I created last year:

 

 

I only used a free set of broken glass brushes I found on the internet (you can download them HERE), and added a style to give it the effect of shattered glass.

 

Here’s How It Works …

Once you downloaded and installed the brush set in photoshop, create a layer with the broken glass brush. For my page above, I found that the following settings worked best:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

First, add your shadows as usual, and then make sure to adjust the following settings:

• Inner Glow
• Blend Mode: Screen
• Opacity: 100%
• Color: white (you may want to try different colors depending on your background, though)
• Technique: Precise
• Source: Edge
• Range: 8
• Check Anti-aliased

As usual, you may want to experiment a bit to see how things look on your page. These values are what worked well for that specific page. They may vary depending on backdrop, overall color etc.

Tip:
To achieve an even more realistic look on my scrapbook page, I added a light colored solid layer directly on top of the background and set the opacity to 4%, making it barely visible (that was to serve as the glass layer which was getting shattered). Only in places where there were holes in the center of the shattered glass brushes, I selected those “hole” areas of the brush layer with the Magic Wand and deleted the selected area from the barely visible “glass layer.” Now, those areas appear to be darker then the rest, giving the illusion of a real hole, where there is no glass.

Another more recent page using the same settings is this one:

 

There’s actually not much to creating this effect at all, once you’ve figured out which style settings work best for your brushes.

Have fun trying the broken glass brushes on one of your pages!