Working with textures has become a new trend these days with the progression of digital photography. Just about every photographer who understands where photography is heading is scrambling to learn how to work with them so I thought I would make a basic tutorial on how to use a simple texture overlay to enhance an image.

The first thing you need to do is post process on image that you really like and look for a texture that you think will suit your image. With a little work you will begin to see what works with what…

I can’t seem to remember if I made this texture in photoshop or found it online somewhere but, I know this texture will work well with this image as I have used it many times before. Textures can be found anywhere….. For a quick and easy texture to use just start taking pictures of sidewalks and old rusty cars and you will soon have an arsenal of awesome that can be used for a variety of purposes.

The first thing you need to do is make sure the two images are of the same size.

Step 1) In photoshop hit Ctrl Alt I and make sure that both images have a width of 3888 and a height of 2592. Size will vary with particular image.

Step 2) Once that is done you will need to copy and paste the texture on top of your edited image. Then head on over to your layers palate and adjust your blending mode to multiply. After you have done these steps you wil start to have a pretty cool image.

One of the biggest mistakes I see with people using textures is that they don’t clean up the image after adjusting the blending mode and skin tones get all dirty and messy looking.  To clean up the image you will need to follow a few more steps.

Step 3) With the lasso tool start to draw an outline around the part of the picture that you want to clean up. This whole process is easier if you use a pen tool but, if you don’t have one your mouse will work just fine.

Step 4) After you have your outline right click somewhere inside your circle and feather the image 20%. This will smooth out the circle a bit and make a softer outline.

Step 5) Go to Image/Filter/Blur/Gaussian blur and blur the circle to taste to get rid of the texture you don’t want in the picture and……

Instant Eyegasm…….

Feel free to stop in every now and then and check out the stuff for photographers section located on the top of this blog.

Photoshop classes by Darkershadesofbrown Photography coming to the Scranton area in 2010.

If you would like a free copy of this texture email me at Dlanton@Darkershadesofbrown.com and I will send it to you.

~Daniel~