Clipping Mask Texture To Imitate Letterpress Ink - How To

Spoon Graphics, Digital Yard Sale and Design Shack have really good tutorials for using texture as layer masks. One uses the channels tab and the other gets to the same place along a different path.

There's no one right way to achieve a Photoshop effect and I must confess I don't use Channels as much as I should. Here are my notes but do check out the tutorials. I had a hard time finding a working link today from my bookmarks so I was very happy when all of these sites worked.

My Notes:
Place main image in Photoshop.
Command J to duplicate the layer.

Place a grunge texture photo.
Image > Adjustments > Desaturate.
Image > Adjustments >  Levels. Use the sliders to increase the contrast. More white for less grunge, black for more more grunge.

Select the main image and add a Layer Mask.

On the Texture Layer:
Command A, Command C, Command D.
Hide this layer or delete it.

Go back to the main image layer.
Option > Click the Layer Mask thumbnail.
Command V.

My Notes For The Channels Version:
Place main image in Photoshop.
Command J to duplicate the layer.

Place a grunge texture photo.
Image > Adjustments > Desaturate.

Open the Channels Panel. I used the blue Channel.
Duplicate the channel by dragging it down to the pages icon on the bottom right.
Click on the Blue Copy Channel.
Use Levels to increase the contrast.
Command > Click on the channel to make it a live selection.

Select the main image layer. Add a Layer Mask.