If you have been following any length of time, you will know that I have a love affair with textures. I L.O.V.E. what just the right textures can do for a picture. Color, hues, texture, depth, light, vignetting and more. It is amazing how they can bring a picture to life!
I have done a tutorial on how to add textures, and I recently did a tutorial-of-sorts on how to add photo veils and textures. What I want to share today is the cut and dry about textures and then some of the not so cut and dry about them too.
- Textures are simply pictures of real texture taken by a photographer OR they are pictures made to look like textures, created by someone use PS or PSE.
- You drag textures into your image, size them to fit and then change the blend mode to either Overlay or Soft Light (usually).
- Texture should be minimized on your subject (especially human faces) by using a low opacity eraser brush or selecting the area and adding some surface blur.
- Lower the opacity of the texture layers according to the image, don’t keep the texture so strong that it overpowers the image and that is all you see.
Some of my favorite textures makers are:
- Kim Klassen
- Shadowhouse Creations
- Florabella
- Paint The Moon
- Love That Shot (they make the awesome photo veils I use so much)
Want to learn more on the how-to’s with texture? My written tutorial is HERE, Annie from Paint the Moon has a great video tutorial on textures, Kim Klassen has downloadable e-books and workshops you can take.
Here is a secret: When I have way too much to do and I am stressed and overwhelmed, sometimes I de-stress by playing around in PSE, making textures. I have made many, but most tend to look much like each other. 🙂 Occasionally I manage to make some that I think are half-way decent. These are NO WHERE near as beautiful as those made by the people I listed above, however, I am willing to send them out in the world for others to use if they so choose.
Below is a picture with a sneak peek of each of the five textures in the pack, which you can download for FREE by clicking HERE.
THank you so much for this. I am still a greenhorn using textures but I know not to overdo it. It was seeing so many photos with textures that were way overdone that made me hesitant to even try it. BUt now that I have, I really enjoy it on some photos. I too LOVE the textures by Shadowhouse — he’s great.
i am soooo excited about this. i have PSE and just simply cannot navigate it the way i need to. i want to take your online course but finding time…EEK!!!
thanks for this.
love your site!!
as always . . . <3
I LOVE textures! Thank you for sharing these. I am loving that blue one already.
Thank you Amanda! Always looking out for new textures to play with and these look great!
(I too love Shadowhouse Creations – his stuff rocks 🙂 )
I love these! I am slowly teaching myself Photoshop Elements and doing some senior picture shots for a friend that these will work wonderfully with! Thank you so much for sharing!
Thank you so much. You are totally getting me into using textures. It is so much fun!!
Yay! I am so glad, Chris! I would love to see some of your texture plays, feel free to share them on the FB page.
Thanks so much Amanda. I learn so much here on your blog!
thank you! So excited for this! When I get stressed I eat! I think your stress relief is so nice for your fans. We all love you! <3 Can't wait to learn how to do this!! 🙂 🙂
Thanks Amanda – I am really loving textures right now!
THANK YOU! I can’t wait to get home, download and play with these! I’ve just recently started to get into textures and they are so much fun!
Thanks so much for the free textures!