Experimenting with Texture

Hi all,

I haven't really used textures in the past, so I would love your feedback on this image. I first blurred the image, masking the iris. Then I added a lavender texture, again masking the iris. Then I applied a hue/sat layer, but just changed the luminosity. I wanted to de-emphasize the green leaves in the lower half of the image even more than the blur produced, but couldn't figure out how. Also, I wasn't sure how much to mask the iris...would it look better if the iris were a little blurred too? Also, once I kept the iris natural-looking, I sharpened the whole image...is it obvious that I didn't mask the texture? I don't mean to overwhelm you with all these questions...just trying to learn.

Thanks,
Wendy

Wendy, good for you to experiment! You have a nice concept going here with a soft lavender bkgd and I will give my version of thoughts to your questions. One way to de-emphasize the green is to choose the green and/or yellow channel in hue/saturation of PS and reduce the saturation to your desires. Remember to mask the flower and stem. Also since you blurred the texture I would not have any sharpening applied to it. As far as how much to mask the iris is a choice dictated on how you want this image to turn out. There is no "correct" answer. Just some things to consider...mask the entire flower if you want the effect of clean edges on all the petals. For a dreamy look, apply the blur to the entire image and with a soft brush remove the effect from most of the flower and at a reduced opacity, only lightly remove the effect from the edges. I would do this on a layer mask so you can experiment and adjust the edge effect to your liking. I'm sure others will chime in with their thoughts.

Ditto what Nancy said. Another thing that might take care of the green petals is the blend mode you choose for the texture layer. Sometimes, it works well to apply the same texture in separate layers with different blend modes and opacities. One blend mode might tame the leaves while a subsequent layer with a different mode might give you the color you want. In my opinion, the Hue/Saturation adjustment layer in Photoshop, itself, isn't nearly as good as the HSL / Grayscale palette in Camera Raw. It doesn't have as many color choices, the user interface isn't as easy to work with, and it often doesn't do as good a job in reducing luminosity. If I change saturation with the Hue/Saturation adjustment layer, I'll generally apply a Curves adjustment layer to adjust luminosity. If you're running Photoshop CC, you can use Camera Raw as a filter anytime in your workflow. That's a great feature that wasn't available before.

This doesn't apply to the current image, but textures can be desaturated to apply lines and patterns, change tones, and add vignettes.

Learning to use textures takes time and experimentation. Don't be discouraged if you're not getting what you want right away. Over the last couple months, I've looked at some of the images I did when initially working with textures. In many case, I've grimaced and redone them with much better results.

Hi, Wendy, good advice from Nancy and Dennis. I will go through spells where I will try 50 textures and none of them work and I give up in despair. Then things will "click" again so it's definitely not for the faint of heart. If you don't subscribe to Denise Ippolito's blog, I suggest you do. This recent one - http://deniseippolito.com/blog/2014/...ive-texturing/ should answer a lot of your questions also. Denise does textures as well or better than anyone I know.:S3:

Sometimes it takes me hours of experimentation to find the right "look". Good advice from the experts above. I think you are just starting to learn and that is fun!

Thanks, all, for your great advice and encouragement!

Wendy, I'm also a texture novice. The comments and tips from the pros above are on the money. As a beginner, my best results emerge when I keep it simple and subtle.

Wendy. Nice job on this Iris. It is a pleasing composition. I like the simple, centered approach you took.
As for textures--practice, practice, practice--and have fun! Great comments and suggestions above.
I love using textures, and do so on the majority of my images. It is a matter of experimenting.
You did a good job masking the Iris, except towards the bottom, and a bit around the edges of the Iris. I find masking to be very difficult and seldom use it. I think the Iris looks fine the way you did it. Instead of masking, ff I have a flower with complicated edges, I use use soft textures and blend modes that will be OK on the flower, or, I brush out some of the texture using a layer mask.
As to de-emphaising the green leaves--this is not easy to do. You might try cloning them out and then adding your texture; or using a green texture.
You may have sharpened the image a bit too much. I sharpen every image before posting, using a new layer and then blending it using Luminosity. How much I sharpen depends on the look I want. I try to keep it subtle.
Do keep asking questions. That is one good way to learn.

Good for you Wendy! Experimentation and feedback are great ways to develop your own style and learn how to manipulate the textures. I find texture application (and selection) to be quite frustrating too, but the rewards are great when you find that magic combination that works well. One thing I've found to be interesting is to invert the color of a texture and then use different layer blend modes. It's amazing what you can come up with! Also, another cool workflow step is to use "stamp visible", which makes a copy of the current layer and all below (be sure you have your top layer selected) but retains all those layers so you can go back to them if you want. I find this much better than flattening the image, because flattening destroys all those layers you worked so hard with. :c3: