Creating Textures

As when creating textures for 3D applications, you need to remember a few things when creating textures for use in 2D paint programs:

The size of the texture is important. 2D paint programs hold the texture in memory when you are using them to paint. Having somewhat smaller textures will increase the speed at which you can work. You can have and use large textures, and artists often do for specific projects. However, typically textures should be rather small, usually less than 512 x 512 pixels in dimension. More often than not, it's best to try to keep your textures 256 x 256 pixels in dimension.

Contrast is important. Most paint programs use the value information in an image to create the texture. Having images with narrow value ranges will not provide as effective textures as will images with a large range of values. The opposite can also be true. A strictly black and white image will often prove to be too contrasty and harsh .

Seamless is generally better. It's not very desirable to be in the middle of painting and suddenly have a line appear in your image where the texture ends. Try to always make the textures that you use seamless so that their edges will not become a distraction.

There are three main methods of creating textures in the digital world: taking and manipulating images from the real world; using computer applications, in this case Photoshop, that are capable of creating textures; and drawing your own by hand.

Creating Textures from Photographic Reference Materials

The main requirement for creating textures from photo reference is to be aware of your surroundings. If you cannot see the textural surfaces around you, you will not be able to use them. You might want to get in the habit of carrying a camera around with you. You never know when something will catch your eye and will be usable in an image you are contemplating.

You can use a digital camera to photograph the textures that you see around you. Film cameras as well as scanners are also useful. Whatever you use to get the image is really not important, as long as you get the image. An inexpensive digital camera with a two-megapixel image will serve you just as well as an expensive, higher-resolution one. Digital is preferable because it is so easy to get the image into the computer. Figures 12.1 through 12.3 are digital pictures of some natural textures found in Goblin Valley State Park.

Figure 12.1: Texture number 1.

Figure 12.2: Texture number 2.

Figure 12.3: Texture number 3.

These images are good beginnings for drawing some great textures in your paintings, but they're not really usable in their current form. To get the images ready to be used as textures within Photoshop, follow these steps:

1. Pick any of the three images and resize it from 2048 x 1536 pixels to 400 x 300.

2. In the Filter menu, select Other and then Offset. In the resulting dialog box, offset the image 200 pixels in the horizontal direction and 150 pixels in the vertical direction. Make sure the circle next to Wrap Around is checked. Your image will now look like the one in Figure 12.4. Now it is quite obvious where the seams of the image are located. With the sides of the image moved into the center, it is time to get rid of the seams and have a texture that can be tiled.

   
   Figure 12.4: The texture with offset applied.

3. There are several methods you can use to get rid of these seams in Photoshop. Each has different strengths and weaknesses. You can use the Clone Stamp tool, the Healing Brush tool, and the feathered cut-and-paste technique. Usually a combination of all three will bring you the best results.

   To use the cut-and-paste method, do the following. Using the rectangular selection tool, select a relatively thin selection of the image that is almost the whole vertical height of the image, as shown in Figure 12.5.

   
   Figure 12.5: The tall, vertical selection.

   Feather the selection about 5 pixels, then copy and paste the selection. You can see the part that is copied and pasted in Figure 12.6.

   
   Figure 12.6: The selection that is cut and pasted.

   Place this feathered selection over the middle seam of your image. Move it up or down to get a good random placement. Often you may need to paste several pieces to get good coverage of the vertical seam. When you have covered the vertical seam to your liking, merge down all the layers .

4. Now do the same thing in the horizontal direction. Make a long horizontal selection, feather the selection, copy it, and paste it back into the image. Figure 12.7 shows the horizontal selection that will be pasted back into the image.

   
   Figure 12.7: The feathered horizontal selection.

   Once again, it might take more than one paste operation to cover the horizontal seam completely. Figure 12.8 shows the texture with all the seams now covered.

   
   Figure 12.8: The texture with both the horizontal and vertical seams covered.

   When the seams are covered to your satisfaction, go ahead and merge all the layers down.

5. Increase the contrast of the image, as shown in Figure 12.9. You can do this in Image >Adjustments >Brightness and Contrast or Image >Adjustments >Auto Contrast.

   
   Figure 12.9: The texture with the contrast increased.

6. You will notice that there is still some unevenness in the image along the horizontal and vertical areas where the original seams were. This value difference needs to be minimized as much as possible or your image will appear distinctly repetitive when used as a pattern. There is a simple way to minimize these large value differences by using the High Pass filter (from the Filter menu, choose Other and then choose High Pass). Figure 12.10 shows the High Pass filter slider with a radius setting of 10 pixels and the resulting change in the image. Play with the slider until you remove as much of the value shift across the image as possible. The High Pass filter is extremely good at removing the low-frequency noise from images. You will notice that it also removes most of the color , but this is not really a concern when creating textures to paint with.

   
   Figure 12.10: The texture with the High Pass dialog box displayed.

7. Run the Auto Levels adjustment to get a good range of values from dark to light. Figure 12.11 shows the texture after adjusting the levels.

   
   Figure 12.11: The texture after running the Auto Levels command.

8. Let's now save the newly created seamless texture as a pattern and have it available to use in your paintings. This is as simple as going to the Edit menu and selecting Define Pattern. Figure 12.12 shows the location of this command. Choosing it will bring up a dialog box asking what you want to call your new pattern. Call it whatever you like, but make it something you can remember. After defining your pattern, it is a good idea to go ahead and save the image you have been working with. You never know when you might need this image again.

   
   Figure 12.12: The Define Pattern command found under the Edit menu.

Just as with brushes, when you have created a few of your own new and unique patterns, save them into your own pattern libraries.

Photoshop's Pattern Maker

Both Photoshop 7 and CS have a nifty little item nestled under the Filter menu called Pattern Maker. Pattern Maker has the potential of generating a virtually endless supply of seamless patterns. It uses information from either a selection within an image or the contents of the Clipboard. You can create multiple patterns from a single selection.

In this section, we will quickly go over creating various textures using Photoshop's Pattern Maker from a photographic reference.

First, open any of the photographs of textures supplied on the CD-ROM and select the Pattern Maker from the Filter menu, as shown in Figure 12.13.

Figure 12.13: The Pattern Maker.

You will notice that your cursor has turned into a crosshair. Use this to select a region with the image. You can move the selection around by clicking and holding within the selection.

After selecting the area you want to use to make the pattern, you need to tell Photoshop what size you want the seamless tile to be. These controls are found in the Tile Generation section of the Pattern Maker. You can have the tile be the whole image size, which will make the tiling image the same size as the original image. You can also enter numeric values in the width and height fields, or drag the sliders that will pop up when you click on the small triangle to the right of the numbers .

If you want the tile to offset in either the vertical or horizontal direction, select Vertical or Horizontal in the Offset box. The default is No Offset. Below the Offset box is the amount of offset. This is a percentage of the pixel dimensions you specified.

Now, click the Generate button at the top of the Pattern Maker window. The preview area where the original texture or photo was displayed is now filled with the created pattern/texture, as shown in Figure 12.14.

Figure 12.14: The Pattern Maker window is filled with the generated pattern/texture.

The individual tile is displayed in the preview window in the Tile History section of the Pattern Maker. You can also preview the tile boundaries and how the individual tiles line up within the larger image by checking the Tile Boundaries box.

If you like the texture that is created, click on the small floppy icon right below the preview window. This will bring up the Pattern Name dialog box, shown in Figure 12.15.

Figure 12.15: The Pattern Name dialog box appears when you click on the small floppy logo below the preview window.

Name the pattern, and Photoshop then saves it into your current library. You can quickly generate an extremely large number of variations if you want by clicking the Generate Again button. As each pattern is generated, the preview will update. After a few (or many) patterns are generated, you can cycle through them using the arrows below the preview window. Save the ones you like and discard the ones you don't by clicking on the small trash can icon. You can generate up to 20 tiles before the Pattern Maker begins to delete the oldest in the series.

Now you have seen two ways of creating seamless textures to use in your Photoshop painting projects. There is one more method worth mentioning, and that is creating your textures by hand. While not the fastest method by any measure, it is the method where you have the most control over what you create. In the next section, you will see the general method used to create a texture by hand.

Creating Hand-Drawn Textures from Scratch

This may become your favorite method for creating textures. The method is relatively straightforward and easy to master. The variety of textures possible is limited only by your imagination . Follow these steps to draw textures by hand using Photoshop:

1. Create a new image of any size up to about 600 x 600 pixels. Select any brush that you care to use and begin drawing and painting in the center of the image, as shown in Figure 12.16.

   
   Figure 12.16: Begin painting in the texture, at first limiting your work to the center of the image.

2. In the Filter menu, select Other and then choose Offset. Make sure Wrap Around is selected and offset the image half its dimensions in both the vertical and horizontal directions. The image will have something of a cross shape in the middle, as shown in Figure 12.17.

   
   Figure 12.17: The texture offset in both the horizontal and vertical directions.

3. Continue to paint in the center of the image, working toward the edges but not touching them, as shown in Figure 12.18.

   
   Figure 12.18: Using the same brushes and painting in the center of the image.

4. Once again, offset the image but only one quarter of the dimensions this time. You now have only a couple of white areas located in opposite corners. Fill in these areas using your same brushes, as shown in Figure 12.19.

   
   Figure 12.19: The image offset again but only one quarter of the dimensions.

5. As Figure 12.20 shows, you now have a completely seamless texture that you can convert into a pattern and use in your painting.

   
   Figure 12.20: The completely hand-drawn custom texture.