Using Textures

Will someone talk to me about how textures are used in PS CS4 with photographs, or point me to some tutorials? Do you just use Ff to get a texture onto a layer in PS and then use Define Pattern to save it? And then use a Bevel and Emboss layer style to apply it? Or are you using the texture filter from the Filters menu? Or both? Or others? How do they differ? I find this area interesting, but can find little in the way of resources.

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GlennG wrote: Will someone talk to me about how textures are used in PS CS4 with photographs, or point me to some tutorials?

ok, let's just start with that first sentence. and, in fact, let's go just a touch earlier than that just so we're all on the same page. a texture, in real life, would be mostly about the tactile sense, your sense of touch. a carpet feels a certain way and has a certain roughness or smoothness to it. in the real world, texture is not so much about look and light and color as it is about feel. linoleum has a certain feel. wood has a certain feel. glass has yet another feel and so on across the boards. but, when you try to recreate that in a graphics program, like CS4 or paint shop pro, you obviously cant feel the graphic within the monitor. so, we're talking about a simulated thing here when talking about computer textures, or graphic textures. even if you print it out, a picture of grass isnt going to feel like real grass.

so, a texture in computer graphics shld be about simulated what makes a texture in the real world and so it all gets translated in look instead of feel. so, the trick of making a carpet filter, for instance, in duplicating the look of a carpet, the depth, the length, the roughness, is it dirty, clean, and now, even color tends to enter into it. color and light actually shldnt be considered texture, but any more, it's kind of all bled in together and with a program like filter forge, that gets even more so, since special lighting is included.

ok, so, textures in photoshop or any other program, can be used however you wish. photoshop even has some built in. let's say you take a 'canvas' texture, one that is simulating a real world canvas, and you apply it to a photo along with some other filters and such, in order to make your photo look like an oil painting. normally, when i do something like that, i collapse all the layers into one and duplicate it. i then apply that canvas texture to that duplicated layer and voila, i now have a photo with a canvas texture on it.

but, filter forge goes even further. since you can use FF in stand-alone mode (without photoshop or some other program), you can also make stand-alone textures. you might wish to copy one of those to your photoshop folders so that you can use it like the 'canvas' filter and apply it to another image.

FF can also be used with selections in photoshop/paint shop pro/(and others), which means that if you have made a selection on an image within your graphics editor, you call up FF from within your graphics program, run your filter, and it will apply its result to your selection only.

but, FF does even more. it is divided up into two major types of filters, ones that produce textures and ones that produce effects that are applied to other images directly. in the latter, you might have a filter that applies brushstrokes to a photo or one that blurs around the edges of a photo and so on. these are not stand-alone results, but rely on the imported image to be rendered upon in some way.

so, FF is quite the tool and with over 6000 filters in the library now, it's an incredible bargain and really quite fun.

ok, so that's my 'quick' rundown for you. there are help files both on this site and within FF and on the wiki for FF. so, have a look around, ask questions, and bug the developers endlessly

I appreciate all of the detailed responses to my questions. Having 6000 filters/textures available is a bit daunting!

Hey Glenn,

Good to hear that you received the info.
A/OK, & that you found it helpful.

Have a GREAT day!

Ron