Textured effects: creating texture in your art using your photos

Expression, Sept-Oct, 2005 by Helen Bradley

If you're like me, your mind has wandered to the possibility of turning photographs into papers for your artwork. Armed with a digital camera and graphics software, you might be surprised at the effects that you can get, many of which will rival and exceed the beauty of the papers that you can buy.

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The entire process of turning your photos into art is much easier than it looks. You can easily capture photographs to use as the basis for your artwork and then manipulate these photos in your graphics software to combine into interesting textured effects. Then, when you're ready to print, there are myriad papers to try which yield interesting results.

What To Shoot

Any digital camera is capable of shooting photographs for artwork and it doesn't need to be an expensive SLR. When searching for things to photograph, look up and down in places you may not usually look. Pothole covers in the road, cracks in concrete, and peeling paint make good targets for your camera. Some painted light posts near my house are distressed and have interesting textures left over from years of having posters stuck to them.

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When photographing, fill the camera viewfinder or LCD with your image. For close-up shots, enable the macro setting on your camera so it adjusts to focus in close. Back off your zoom as macro and zoom settings generally don't work well together. Shoot a range of textures and store them in a separate folder on your computer so you always have plenty to choose from.

Manipulating The Results

Back at your computer, there are some tools and techniques that you can apply to your textures in your graphics software that will help you extract the interesting information from them to use either on their own or in conjunction with other images.

The instructions in this article are appropriate to Adobe Photoshop Elements and can be easily adapted to Adobe Photoshop. If you're using software other than these programs you'll find the techniques are equally applicable to most graphics software. Look up the help function or the manual for your software to see how to perform these steps in your program.

Understanding Layers

The most important tool to use is layers. Using layers lets you build an image from pieces placed on different layers, which are stacked vertically one on top of the other. The information on the topmost layer blocks out the image on the layers underneath. If you haven't encountered layers before, open two images in your photo-editing software and view the Layer Palette by choosing Window, Layers. In the Layer Palette is a background layer that contains the image. Click and drag this from one image into the second one. You will now have two layers in the second picture, one on top of the other and the top one will block out the one underneath.

Blending Layers

So much for layers ... now for layer blend modes. Layer blend modes let you blend two or more layers together. The current layer blend mode displays at the top of the Layer Palette and is Normal. To see how they work, click the top layer in your sample that has two photos in it and, from the list, choose the Color Burn blend mode. Now you'll see parts of the underlying image through the image on top. There are lots of layer blend modes and not all work well on all images--experiment with them to see what looks best for the image you're working with.

It's also possible to blend an image with itself. Right-click the background layer and choose Duplicate, Layer and click OK. Click the duplicate image layer and press Ctrl I to invert the colors in the layer and now choose the Pin Light blend mode. This alters the image by blending it with its inverse. By altering the opacity of the top layer using the Opacity slider you can make it more or less transparent and this lets more or less of the underlying image to be seen through it.

Experiment with altering the color of the top layer by choosing Enhance, Adjust Color, Adjust Hue/Saturation. Use the Hue slider to alter the color of the top layer and notice the effect it has on the blended result.

Painting And Erasing

Using a regular photo and a photo of an interesting texture you can create interesting art by just using layers. However, it also looks good if you enhance the result by painting on a layer or erasing part of it to show the layer below. To do this, click the Brush tool and select a brush from the dropdown list. There are plenty of interesting shapes and you can load more by clicking the palette menu, choose Load Brushes and select a brush category from the list. The same brushes can be used to paint on any layer and, with the Eraser tool, to erase the top layer to reveal the layers underneath.

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Working With Textures

When you're ready to work with a particular photo, start with one you like such as a picture of flowers or a child and add a photo of a texture over the top of it. Work at blending the two together using a mixture of layers and layer blend modes and paintbrushes. You can also use a filter on a layer to alter it or use the contrast and brightness and color tools to adjust the effect.