First Try at Textures

Inspired by some of the texture work I have seen on OOTB, I thought I would give it a try. Need help though. Is there a link to info on how to load textures into Photoshop. I ended up loading them as Patterns, but they loose detail when enlarged.

Anyway, I hope everyone is having a nice holiday season.

I used a Shadowhouse texture on this image and then did a gradient light fade to black on the top. It seemed to give it a bit of depth. Please let me know what I should be doing better:S3:..............Thanks.

Hi Jay;

I really like the image and the texturing; I think I would have been tempted to mask the texture layer and, using a low opacity brush, painted some of the natural texture and color of the tulip back in. With all credit to Denise, she has a wonderful step-by-step tutorial on applying textures on her site: http://deniseippolito.com/2011/04/cr...nise-ippolito/ ; hope her guide helps you.

Nice first try, Jay! I love the colors, and the gradient BG was a great idea. I agree with John on partially masking the texture off the tulip and stem because I would like to see the edges of the tulip more defined and not blending into the BG so much.

To add textures to an image, just open the texture file in PS and then use Duplicate Layer to duplicate it onto your image as a new layer; or you can just click the texture layer in the Layer palette and drag it onto your image. Then adjust the blending mode and opacity to whatever you want. For more info, you can check out Denise's tutorial that John mentioned above, Hilary's tutorial: Enhancing images with textures, and my own texture tutorial: Old Photo Tutorial. Hope that helps and looking forward to more! :S3:

Jay, I think you don't need any tutorials! This is fantastic and it could not be improved IMO. Great tutorials by both Hilary and Christopher and worth trying out.
PS- Thank you John for the kind words.

This turned out pretty dang good for a first try, Jay. Nice base image, light, texture and comp. Wondering if some burning and dodging on the bottom half of the texture would give it even more depth. Nice work, those tutorials are helpful, and look forward to seeing more.

Jay, this is awesome! I like the colors and a great use of gradient bg. Excellent processing!

Jay, beautiful work. Love the ethereal effect of the tulip blending into the textures. Once you get started, the world's your oyster as there are so many subjects, textures and blends you can play with. Sometimes you can layer textures at tiny opacities … I use some at 5% and build up the effects and peel back the texture from some areas with a layer mask and brush at 2 and 3 %. So much fun and you've made a wonderful start. I look forward to seeing more.

Thanks everyone.

Hillary, thanks for the tips and the encouragement.

Denise, Thanks, I will check out the links.

Looking good, Jay. I think you chose a great texture to go with the image. In addition to the good tips already given, here ae a couple more for what they're worth. There are many good free textures available, but -- for the most part -- I use ones I purchase from Flypaper Textures. Whether you're interested in their textures, or not, occasional visits to their website can be illuminating because they often post new images with rollovers to show before and after. They include their workflow, as well.

I use MiniBridge to view the folders where my textures are stored. It's easy, that way, to view a larger version of the texture before deciding whether to use it or not. Depending on whether or not I want to modify the texture or not, I open it from there in Adobe Camera Raw or as a new file in Photoshop. From there, I move it to the image where it'll be used.

Have fun. Lots of trial and error is a good thing. I look forward to seeing more.

Very nicely textured Jay...agree that it is perfect just the way it is!