Textures Tutorial

In photoshop open up you main image and the texture that you wish to work with. Set you tool to the move tool. Select the texture, hold down your left mouse button and drag it onto the top of the main image

Move Tool

Drag

Release the mouse button the texture will then either cover all the picture or part of it..

You can now close down the original texture image as you no longer need it.

Pull out the corners then click on the tick to resize the texture layer

You may need to resize the upper layer to fit the one below. There is 2 ways that you can do this. The first is by pulling the corners of the texture image until it covers the main image. Or by selecting edit-transform-scale then pull the corners outward or inward to resize the texture layer. You then need to click on the tick to finish the transformation.

Make sure that you have the correct layer selected by looking at the layers palette to the right. Layer 1 is the texture layer, Background is the picture of the flower. If your layers palette is not showing click on windows> layers and the palette will open

You can now close down the original texture image as you no longer need it.

Next you have to go to the layers palette to adjust the texture so that you can see the picture underneath. Hit the blending modes tab, this will be on normal to start and when you open it up other options will show up. I picked screen for this image, you can adjust the opacity to make the textures more faded. I also try all the different layer option, overlay and vivid light also work well.

blending mode tab

Opacity slider

2.The vector mask will then appear besides your texture layer

1.Click this to add a vector mask

Next I go to the layer pallet and make sure that layer 1 (Textured layer) is selected. I then click on the “Add Vector Mask� button at the bottom of the layer pallet. This will create a mask so that you can further remove or soften any bits of texture that need work.

Set Brush diameter and hardness Foreground colour to black to add mask, white to remove mask

Next select the brush tool on the toolbar. I usually pick a soft round brush and set the hardness to about 15-20%. I also set the opacity at 15-30 and the flow to 20-30 this

allows you to gradually paint out the texture. Make sure that the foreground colour down the bottom of the toolbar, is set to black. Black masks any textures, if you remove too much texture just swap the foreground colour to white and this will remove the mask and let the texture reappear. If you want to take most of the texture off the flower, I recommend that you don’t remove the texture all the way to the edge but blend it in gradually, this makes it look more natural.

You can add more textured layers if you wish. Once you have masked the first layer its easy, you may want to apply it to another layer, or copy its inverse to another layer  Move Mask: To move a mask from one layer to another, simply click on the mask in the Layers window and drag it to the layer you want it applied to. Note: the mask will no longer be on the layer you moved it from.  Copy Mask: To copy a mask from one layer to another, Alt + Left-click on the mask, then drag and release it to the new layer. Now both layers will have the identical copies of that mask! (Note, changing one mask will not alter the other one.)  Invert Mask: Inverting masks is handy. If you've carefully masked an Adjustment Layer from affecting part of an image, and want a different Adjustment layer to affect the opposite part of the same it, first Copy the mask as per the instructions above - then click on the mask you want inverted and click Image > Adjustments > Invert (or press Ctrl + I).

All you need to do now is save it PSD (photoshop file) which means it will save the layers as is and you can go back and work on them again if you wish. Or you can flatten the image layer-flatten image and save to a jpeg. I do both. You can also play around with levels, hue/saturation of either layer to change the look I also experiment by swapping the order of the layers around, you can do this by clicking on the lock on the background layer in the layers pallet, then dragging the texture layer under the original background layer

Good luck and most of all have fun.