Using textures

[CdnRebel]

I took a photoshop course a few years ago and haven't used most of the features since. So I think I need step-by-step instruction on how to do this. I read the Adobe Photoshop help instructions and followed them, but nothing happened. What I am trying to do is start with a blank screen, add colour with a gradient (that part I managed to do) and leaves in autumn colours (I'm not getting the nice red colours that I was before even though I have set the foreground to red--I'm just getting plain orange colours and the leaves are now an odd shape). I would also like the coloured background to be textured as well. A brick wall would be ideal. I went into the Filter menu, chose Artistic>Underpainting with a Layer of brick and selected a light direction. I am not sure how the texture is supposed to work. Am I supposed to use a certain tool with it? I have tried things in different orders and am getting confused as to the orders that I have tried. Can someone be explicit?

Thanks,
CdnRebel

P.S.: It would really help in searching for help, if the persons who posted the topics put more thought into their subject line to indicate what their topics are about.

 

[namvet]

G'day reb ... just a thought .. you can also 'do bricks' with filter>texture>texturizer ... and bricks look better in my oppinion ....
unfortunately my slow, old brain didn't understand the prob you are having with the leaves (first thoughts about colour change was you'd changed the layer opacity, or changed the blending on that layer from normal to somethingelse ... but brain suggested you would have mentioned that, so I guess not) ... perhaps if you clarified the steps you made before the colour change it might help .. hope this helps you a little ...

 

[ronmatt]

why don't you post what you have to this point along with some description of what you're trying to accomplish? I'm with namvet here, I really don't quite understand the problem. \:/

 

[CdnRebel]

I managed to end up with the first attachment after playing around a bit. But I can't tell you how I got to that point. When I tried again with the second attachment, I started out with the coloured background (and that was by accident), but I got stuck trying to figure out how to give that thing texture. I went into Filter>artistic>underpainting> and I set the texture to brick (don't know what the other settings do), but I didn't know what to do after that. I don't know what tool I should be working with and sometimes I get to a place where none of the drop down screens allow for any selections and I don't know what I've done. What I would really like to do is create a realistic looking brick wall and place leaves on it. Can I do that? A rainbow brick wall would even be better.


Thanks,
CdnRebel

 

[ljiljana]

Yes, you can go to Filter> Texture> texturized> and from drop down manu choose Brick
That is in Photoshop 7.01.
Hope this helps.

 

[namvet]

Reb ... ljiljana is absolutely right about the brick effect ... try it ... in the meantime below is a 'quick pic' ... the background colour comes from the gradient tool .. the bricks as per ljiljana's suggestion ... the leaves are from the custom shape tool (on a seperate layer .. then the layer is 'rasterized' and changed to 'color') ... hope that makes sense .. if it doesn't, post again, am sure someone can help you .. regards nam

 

[TaoBoogie]

Hi CdnRebel, I started out firing up PS in order to help you. I love the examples above by namvet and ljiljana by the way, I think they have nailed the procedure you asked for.
I, on the other hand, got totally carried away and ended up with this. I guess it's not really what you want but it does illustrate another way of doing a wall. I just used a sample picture of a wall, desaturated a copy to greyscale and used that as an Alpha channel with Lighting Effects.
The leaves are made with the leaf brush and twiddled with the settings.
Clicky for a larger view.

 

[Doodad]

Groovy, TaoBoogie!

Here just something similar to the previous posts.

It's basically a three stepper:
1. First layer of uniform colour with the brick texture applied (as per above)
2. Second layer of rainbow colouring using the gradient fill, set to relevant blending style
3. Third layer with the built-in maple leaf brush

 

[CdnRebel]

Thanks everybody. I'm getting closer to what I want, but I am still having a bit of trouble. I really like the effect that Doodad has, but I'd like to get it with the colour tones that I originally had. I'll figure that out eventually, but I was wondering if Doodad could fill me in on how he gets that realistic looking brick wall and the multiple colours on the leaves? I've attached what I've been able to do so far and it looks too much like a cartoon. I had to do Doodad three steps with Step 2 before step 1. When I tried it his way, I ended up with a rainbow with no texture. I may end up going to all this work and deciding to try for a white brick wall and various shades of green leaves.

Thanks again,
CdnRebel

 

[Sark]

1...Create Doc with White BackGround.

2...Add New layer and fill with default rainbow gradient. Set this layers opacity to 75%.

3...Apply Hue & Sat to gradient to suit (Image/Adjustment/Hue & Sat). Apply 20 to 30 pix Gaussian blur if gradient becomes blocky.

4...Apply Brick Texture to suit. Filters/Texture/Texturizer. Example:Scaling=200%, Relief=12, Light Direction=Bottom Right, Invert=Enabled. (Filters/Texture/Texturizer)

5...Turn off both layers (Click eye icons)

6...Add leaves using Custom shape tool (Change default shapes to Nature by clicking little arrow on Shape flyout). Choose White for fill colour.

7...Use Path selection tool to transform and move leaves.

8...Merge leave layers (Layer/Merge visible).

9...Add new layer and group with leaves layer (Hold Alt key down and click between the two layers in the Layers palette).

10...With New layer active, drag the rainbow gradient on the canvas.

11...Turn on Brick wall layers then select leaves rainbow gradient layer and change layers opacity to 80%.

12...Apply Hue & Sat to leaves rainbow gradient layer to suit.

With the leaves rainbow gradient layer selected you can use the Lasso selection tool to make a quick selection around individual leaves, or groups of leaves, and change thier Hue & Sat individually (The selection does not need to be precise). You can of course avoid steps 6 to 8 and create the leaves as Doodad described .

Sark

 

[Doodad]

Sorry for the late response - wasn't around for a while.

Yeah, what Sark said.

For the colour variety on the leaves, open the brush palette, choose "Colour dynamics" and set the "Background/Foreground Jitter" to a fair percentage. I used a darkish green as background and a dark red for foreground - the colours came out a bit dull, so I changed the curves for it a bit (Image --> Adjustements --> Curves). Add two points - one low, one high and adjust (to a sort of rollercoaster peak) - you'll see greater colour vibrance almost immediately with preview active.

You can also use the size dynamics to get size jitter to taste.

For the texture settings for the brick wall, my Relief was set to about 3 or 5, with scaling of 167%.