Linking Life » Adding Texture to a Picture In Photoshop (Part 1)

Adding Texture to a Picture In Photoshop (Part 1)

I like taking pictures. People, places, animals, captain crunch, grass… you get the picture (snicker snicker). Even more than that though, I like adding elements to my photos that make them unique and give them depth.

One of the ways to do that is by adding texture to a photo.

The first thing we need to do is choose a picture that we want to SHAZZZAM with a little texture. I chose this pic of our rotting Halloween pumpkin… yummy.

Then we’ll choose some texture. Stock.xchng has a great variety of free textures to choose from. Just type in “texture” as a search word.

When choosing a texture you want to choose something that will complement the subject of your photo. In this case I chose this slimy green texture to the right because I thought it would add a “Halloweeny” flavor to my pumpkin.

So right click on your texture and save it in a place you can find it. Open it in Photosohop and drag it (using your move tool [v key]) into your picture document. You may need to do a little bit of resizing so that it fits over your photo.

Then scroll through some blend modes and experiment with the opacity of the texture layer to see what you like best.

Before Texture

After Texture

In my case here, with this picture, the blending option that I liked best was color burn at 38% opacity. You can see how it changes the flavor of the picture and gives it depth and gives the colors a richer, darker tone.

A couple of things to note about textures:

for high resolution pictures, you need a fairly high res texture to place on top of it. You can get away with stretching it a little bit, but it’s best to choose a texture that is close in size to the image you are working with.
Soft light, overlay, screen and multiply generally give the best result, but it’s best to experiment with each of the blending options and vary the opacity to find what you like best. Each picture is different.
For the example today I chose a texture that would show up in almost an exaggerated way so that you could clearly see the difference the texture would make when it was placed over the picture. But often the most effective placement of texture is subtle. A texture placed in soft light at low opacity can give your photo a little creative energy and dimension without being overpowering. Check out the pictures on this site for a little inspiration. They are created by a commercial texture plug-in called Totally Rad Actions: Dirty Pictures but it will give you a good idea of what’s possible with textures!

Next time we’ll take a look at how to do a little masking on a texture without losing the color that a texture can provide.