Torn paper PNG — a transparent ripped paper sheet, no photo needed
You get a torn paper PNG without bringing a picture: this page draws a ripped sheet in your browser and hands you the file with a transparent background, so it drops straight onto your own design. Set the size, the paper tone, the tear style and how deep the rip bites — then download.
Runs in your browser — nothing is uploaded, and nothing needs to be.Preview
checkerboard = transparentThe sheet
What this page does, exactly
There is nothing to upload. You set the size of the sheet, the paper tone, the tear style and how far the rip bites in; the page then walks a noisy line around the rectangle and fills everything inside it with the paper tone. The area outside that line is never painted, so those pixels are transparent in the file you download. The preview sits on a checkerboard for exactly that reason — the checkerboard is standing in for the empty pixels.
The same page answers the three phrasings people use for this file — torn paper PNG, ripped paper PNG and paper tear PNG — because they are one object: a sheet of paper whose edge is torn, on an empty background. If you came here wanting a ripped paper transparent background or a torn paper edge PNG to drop onto a photo, that is the file this page produces.
The overlay phrasings are the same object as well: ripped paper overlay, torn paper overlay, paper rip overlay and paper tear overlay all mean this sheet laid on top of something else, and this one page covers them.
The tear is generated, not a preset stamp
Every edge is produced the same way: three layers of noise are added along the perimeter, one coarse, one medium, one fine. The wavelengths are set in pixels — roughly 500, 180 and 70 px — so the rip breaks at the scale a hand tear breaks at, whatever size sheet you ask for. The amplitudes at 100% are 30, 11 and 4 px. These six numbers are constants in this page's script, and they are why the three style buttons are three strengths of one generator rather than three different shapes: Torn runs it at full amplitude, Deckle at half, Shredded at nine tenths.
Because the edge comes from a seed rather than a fixed stamp, no two presses of Re-tear give the same sheet — and because the seed is printed on this page and can be typed back in, you can also get the same sheet again.
The controls, one by one
| Control | What it does | Where it shows |
|---|---|---|
| Size | The size of the sheet, from 400 to 4,096 px on either side. The three presets are shortcuts; the sliders set it exactly. | The downloaded file's pixel size. |
| Paper | The tone the sheet is filled with: white, cream, kraft or black. | The colour of the paper itself. |
| Tear style | Scales the amplitude of all three noise layers: Torn 100%, Shredded 90%, Deckle 50%. | How jagged the edge is. |
| Which edges are torn | All four, top and bottom only, or left and right only. The other edges come out straight. | Which sides of the sheet look torn. |
| How far the rip bites in | Scales the displacement from 0% (a straight cut) to 200% (a violent rip). | How far the edge wanders into the sheet. |
| Edge shading | Paints a shadow along the inside of the tear: none, soft or strong. It stays inside the paper, so the transparent area is unaffected. | The paper looking lifted rather than flat. |
| Seed | The number the edge is drawn from. Re-tear picks a new one; typing a number and pressing Use this seed draws that exact edge again. | The sheet's outline. |
Using it as an overlay
This sheet is built to be stacked. The background is empty and the paper tone is flat, so you drop the downloaded PNG on top of whatever it should cover, and the torn edge is where your picture and the paper meet. Three things follow from that, and they are why the controls are shaped the way they are:
- The empty background is the layer boundary. Everything outside the tear carries no colour, so what is underneath shows through right up to the rip. Put the sheet above the picture in your editor and the two meet with no cutting out.
- The tone decides how the stack reads. White and cream read as a page laid over a design; kraft reads as a folder or a label; black reads as a mask or a reveal. The tone is flat, so it takes on the look of what is underneath rather than fighting it.
- Two sheets make an opening. Place one sheet on the left, torn on the left and right edges only, and a second on the right with the same setting, and the pair reads as a page pulled apart. The seed is printed, so you can keep one edge and re-tear the other until the two halves look like one tear.
Nothing is composited on this page: it hands you the layer, and your editor does the stacking. That is deliberate — the file stays useful in whatever you already work in.
Limits, stated up front
- One sheet at a time. There is no batch mode on this page.
- No account, and nothing saved. Close the tab and the work is gone; nothing is stored and there is no history to return to.
- The ceilings are measured and enforced, not guessed. This page will not build a sheet over 12,000,000 pixels or over 4,096 px on a side, and the message states the number when it refuses. The boundary was measured during the build on this machine's Chrome: the largest sheet this page allows renders and encodes, and one step past it is refused.
- Output is PNG or WEBP. Both hold transparency, which is the whole point of this file. JPEG is not offered here because it cannot carry an empty background — a JPEG of this sheet would come out with a solid rectangle behind the paper.
- Nothing is upscaled or resampled. The sheet is drawn at the size you ask for, not scaled from a smaller template.
- The shading is painted, not a texture file. There is no photographic grain in this page; the paper tone is flat by design, so it takes the colour of whatever you lay it on.
Numbers on this page, and where each one comes from
| Number | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Noise wavelengths | ≈500 / 180 / 70 px | Constants in this page's script (LAMBDA). |
| Noise amplitudes at 100% | 30 / 11 / 4 px | Constants in this page's script (AMP). |
| Style gains | Torn 1.0 · Shredded 0.9 · Deckle 0.5 | Constants in this page's script (GAIN). |
| Pixel ceiling | 12,000,000 px | Enforced by this page before drawing; the boundary was measured on this machine's Chrome during the build. |
| Side ceiling | 4,096 px | Same — it is the slider's own maximum, so it cannot be exceeded by dragging. |
| Output formats | Measured at load | The page probes your browser's encoder when it loads and prints the result under the controls. |
Do I need to upload a photo to get a torn paper PNG?
No, and that is the point of this page. Nothing is uploaded at all: the sheet is drawn from scratch in this tab. If you want your own picture underneath the tear, that is a different job — the torn paper effect page takes a photo and rips its edge.
Is the background really transparent?
Yes, in both PNG and WEBP. Everything outside the torn edge is left unpainted, so those pixels carry no colour in the downloaded file. The checkerboard behind the preview is standing in for them. There is no JPEG button here because JPEG cannot hold an empty background.
Will the same settings give me the same sheet?
Only if you also keep the seed. The seed is printed on the preview and can be typed back in, so the same seed with the same size, paper, style, edges, bite and shading reproduces the same sheet. Press Re-tear and a new seed is drawn, which is how you browse for an edge you like.
How big a sheet can I get?
Up to 4,096 px on either side, and no more than 12,000,000 pixels in total — both numbers are enforced before anything is drawn and both are printed on this page. The sliders stop at the side ceiling, so you cannot ask for more by dragging.
What can I do with the file?
It is a sheet of paper with a torn edge and an empty background, so it sits on top of other things: a heading in a document, a thumbnail, a mock-up, a scrapbook page, a photo you are framing. Because the tone is flat and the background is empty, it takes on the shape of whatever is behind it.
Can I tear only one edge?
You can tear all four edges, the top and bottom only, or the left and right only. The edges you leave alone come out straight, which is what you want when the sheet is meant to continue off the side of a layout.
Does the download have a watermark?
No. The download is the canvas exactly as drawn, unmarked, and there is no limit on how many times you press the button.
Is any of this sent anywhere?
The sheet is drawn and encoded in this tab with the browser's own canvas. There is no upload endpoint on this page, and no file leaves your device — there is no file to leave it.