how to use textures

well, hello! i’ve been asked a tutorial on how to use textures so here i am trying to make their use a little bit less confusing for newbies (or at least i hope for it). i’ve divided the tutorial in parts, staring from the basics to some more exciting things. let’s start!

WHERE DO I FIND GOOD TEXTURES?

since i know sometimes google images cannot be enough, here’s a quick list of blogs you might find useful: textureporn, slaygroundresources , -redux, accio-glow, colouresource, fuckyeahresources, northerndawn, infint7, emmelia, lutherwest, sweettasteofbitter, dobrevas, behindmylove, texturize.

i know there are tons of other great textures’ makers and archives but these are just so you can start working with textures, then as time goes by you’ll find other ones for sure (even because it depends on what kind of textures you’re looking for).

HOW DO I ORGANIZE THEM?

welcome to my biggest problem: being tidy. i really suggest you to have a folder just for all your textures, and then create singular folders for every textures’ maker you took the textures from (name them with their username, for example). this way you won’t have to stress over looking for the blog where you found them, or worse, just use them without crediting the owner. it’ll also be easier to remember where the perfect texture for your hypothetical current work is and so on. don’t be lazy!

HOW DO I USE THEM?

you can use textures in many many ways but there are some key points that, at least as you start working with textures, you should keep in mind. i made an example for every point, you’ll also find the graphics’ unedited pictures, all the textures i used and their sources next to the titles. i thought it’d be simpler to understand if you downloaded all the “kits” and tried to remake the examples yourself. this way next time you’ll know what to do also while working with the pictures you personally chose. ready?

.GRAINY TEXTURES [image - 1 x - 2 x - 3 x]

open in photoshop the unedited picture and all the textures. now choose one of the three textures and drag it on Lea Michele. on your layers palette, set the layer of the texture as screen.

now you can see Lea again, so it’s time to change the size of the texture and move it around til you’re happy with how it looks. to resize it go to edit->free transform. just do the same for all the other textures. at this point you’ll probably notice that there are some ugly lines on the picture, because even if the textures become almost transparent when you set them on screen, actually they are not. that’s why now you have to select your eraser tool and rub out what you don’t want to show. make sure you set the eraser with a low opacity (i used 15%).

ps: sometimes you also need to reduce the opacity of the texture’s layer because full-force it would look bad.

—-

.SELECTION [image - 1 x]

you may have many reasons why you want to cover part of a picture and this kind of textures comes pretty handy in these cases. open in photoshop all the images you downloaded. drag the texture to the photo and set the layer of the texture as screen in your layer palette. use edit->free transform to resize it and then move it as you want. now your white part will probably look different from my graphic because i put the texture’s layer under the coloring ones (which i suggest you to do, too, when you’ll be working on your own) but that’s not a problem, it just makes the final result look more uniform and nice.

—-

.BACKGROUNDS [image - 1 x - 2 3 x]

let’s move from something really simple to something a little more exciting (that’s how i call things that need a bit of work and patience but in the end are way cooler than easy things). open all the images of the kit i provided in photoshop. drag the texture with the colorful cute drawings (sorry i didn’t know how to call it) to the photo and place it on Lea’s left side. then do the same thing always with the same texture but now placing it on her right side. go to your layer palette and set the two textures as multiply. you’ll see that there are some lines on Lea and we don’t want that, right? you just have to select your eraser tool with full opacity and erase them. now pick the paper texture and, as usual, drag it to the picture, always starting from Lea’s left side. do the same thing for the right side, this time you’ll also have to rotate the texture so it will look like it’s all the same piece of paper, go to edit->free transform. now, on your layer palette, select Lea’s layer and move it above the two paper textures’ ones, then set it to multiply. as before, erase the parts of the textures that cover Lea. it’s time to add the last texture, put it on top of all the other layers and set it to multiply, then resize it as you want and erase the undesired parts. i remind you that it won’t look exactly as my graphic because of the place of the coloring’s layers!

—-

.LIGHTS [image - 1 2 x]

i don’t use this kind of textures so often (you can tell from the awful graphic, can’t you?) but i’m going to add them to the tutorial anyway. open the picture and the textures in photoshop. pick one of the two textures and drag it to the photo, now set it as soft light in your layer palette. you can resize it with edit->free transform and then move it around as you want. do the exact same things with the other texture and you’re done.

—-

maybe i’ll add some things to this tutorial in the future, but for now that’s all. remember that, as always, the most important thing when working with anything photoshop related is experimenting and trying new things. these are just a few basic points but there’s much more you can do with textures, so never stop trying!