Making a note to be shown as a handout; what tools would you use for such a thing?

I think we're all familiar with a character finding a mysterious note. Indeed, it's a default for handouts here on roll20. So when making a handout for said note, how do you prefer to make the actual image? How would you go about adding blood stains, or having it ripped, burned, etc? I'm looking into a few programs, see what I can do, but figure someone is three steps ahead of me and has this all figured out lol. What do you use? 

Generic Google images ( Sample Search ) for the background parchment, and find a decently high res one so it's not too small. Then use a generic graphics editor (even just MS Paint often does the job) to add the text in a calligraphy or handwritten looking font like Viner Hand ITC or Freestyle Script. The trick is to make the overall image and text large enough that when zoomed in, is readable without any squinting.

Brass Badger also has a good set that might help you out depending on your exact needs.

Thanks Gabe! I was coming to suggest just that set. It's got a bunch of papers from modern ledgers to old parchments, and is designed to be easy to download, pop into Gimp, Photoshop, or another image editor, and add the text of your choice. I've got a tutorial on it coming out soon(tm), and if you end up using it, I'd love to see what you make of it! Send me a pic!

Badger, I'm so glad you made that pack. I usually have to search the web for parchment images but your marketplace set works perfectly.

Buy Brass Badger's pack. It looks great! If you have lots of free time, you could use free software (Inkscape or Gimp) to make your own mysterious notes. If you use inkscape, in the filters menu, the ink-blot and watercolor filters will both be useful. If you use Gimp, the coffee stain, clothify, and fuzzy border filters will be useful.

Oohh, that set by Badger looks great.  Ive got quite a few of Russ H. Old world sets, and there are several parchment options that are modularish. I build all my maps and notes on a great big one I made and saved. It works quite well

Thanks Pat, glad you dig it! I find it handy to have a stack of "fast to create" secret notes since my players are insane. Happy to know they help! And a note-text pro tip! If you're adding text in gimp or photoshop, instead of a 100% black, it can create a very cool old-fashioned, wet, or distressed effect to use a dark blue, or brown for your text, and then set the "layer mode" to "Multiply" and opacity to 96% or so. It's not perfect, but it's a fast short cut to faded or damp ink.

You can do that with the color red using a spray or pointbrush to make blood splattering also.

I put up a little demo/tutorial for making antique mystery notes from scratch using inkscape with the ink-blot filter. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bofpmeUvewU" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bofpmeUvewU</a> (Not as nice as Badger's, but sometimes you need something DIY/custom.)