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Do you love the luscious affect that a texture gives a photograph, but maybe you're just starting out and aren't sure how to achieve the same look on your own photos?
Well, let me show you just how easy it is to apply textures!...
In this tutorial, you'll learn how to apply a texture and adjust blending modes. You'll also learn how to smooth out the areas where you don't want texture to show, such as over skin.
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Let’s start by opening Photoshop. Once Photoshop has loaded, go to File > Open, and navigate to where you have your photos saved on your computer and select a photo.
Once you have your photo open in Photoshop, you’ll want to follow the same process to open the texture file you'd like to play with.
Now that you have both files open, press the letter "V" on the keyboard to select the Move Tool, then click on the texture file and drag it over and drop it on top of your photo. This will automatically put the texture on a new layer in the layers palette.
You may need to scale the texture slightly to fit the dimensions of your photo. To do this, click on a corner toggle and drag the corner in to place.
From there, we’ll want to adjust the blending mode in the layers palette to give the texture a nice soft appearance. I usually use the “Soft Light” blending mode when working with textures.
You may, at this point, need to adjust the opacity of your texture layer, depending on your photo, the texture you’re using, and the mood you’d like to create. I’m going to leave the texture at full 100% opacity for this photo.
Now that we have applied our texture, you might notice that it looks a little choppy over the skin and face areas. You can either mask or erase the texture from those areas. But sometimes you might want to keep the feel that the color in the texture gives your photo. So instead of erasing the texture, let’s use it!
First, you’ll want to press “L” to select the Lasso Tool. Then in the top tool bar, enter the amount of feathering you’d like to use. For this photo, I’m going to choose “100px”. Then draw loosely around the skin and face areas on your photo.
Select Filter > Blur > Surface Blur.
Enter the following amounts: Radius: 30px, and Threshold: 100 levels.
And there you have it! You’ve applied your first texture to a photo! Now go play some more…and be sure to upload your photos to the gallery. I’d love to see what you come up with!
