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In this tutorial, I will show you a quick and easy way to make a realistic stone texture with the help of the Liquify Filter. This tutorial is written for users who have a basic understanding of the tools and techniques commonly used in Photoshop. Enjoy!

The Final Image

This is what we will be creating:

Stone Texture: Final Image

Step 1: Setting Up the Document

Create a new Photoshop Document (File>New) at any size with a black background. For this tutorial, I created one 550px x 300px (72 dpi).

Document with Black Background

Step 2: Making Dots

Make sure your foreground color is set to white. Now, select a nice-sized brush and set its hardness to 100% (To find the hardness slider, just open the Brush Preset picker by clicking on the brush icon at the top of the screen, right below the main menu bar). Start making dots.

White Dots

Step 3: Creating More Dots

Use the ‘[' and ']‘ keys to change the brush size up or down and continue to fill in the dots until they take up the entire document.

White Dots

Keep Going…

More White Dots

Watch where you put those dots!

It is important that no dot overlaps another. There must be black showing through all the way around every dot.

Step 4: Preparing to Liquify

In the main menu, select Filter>Liquify. In this window, you will use the preset brush type (which should be the Forward Warp Tool). All you need to do is change the size by adjusting the slider on the right. Adjust the size to 95.

Liquify

Step 5: Liquifying

On all the large dots, click inside the white space and drag your brush slightly over thier edges to ‘warp’ their shapes.

More Liquify

Doing it right!

It is important that you use a brush size smaller than the dot you are working on and that your brush is entirely within the dot before you click tp warp the shape. This limits any unwanted blurring of the edges.

Step 6: More Liquifying

Continue with the rest of the dots, adjusting the size of the brush to fit that dot. Ultimately, you’ll want to ‘push’ the dots closer together until the black in-between becomes just a thin line. Click ‘OK’ when you’re done.

Even More Liquify

Step 7: Naming Layers

Double Click the ‘Background’ layer in the Layers panel to bring up the Layer Properties and rename it ‘Stone’.

Stone Layer

Step 8: Duplicating the Layer

Duplicate the ‘Stone’ layer (Ctrl⁄Cmd + J). Rename the new layer ‘Shadow’ and set it to Multiply.

Adding Layers

Step 9: Adding a Guassian Blur

In the main menu, go to Filter>Blur>Guassian Blur. Set the Guassian Blur to 3.5 and hit OK.

Guassian Blur

Your image should now resemble this:

Guassian Blur2

Step 10: Adding Layer Styles

Double click the ‘Stone’ layer to open up it’s Layer Styles. Add a Color Overlay and a Pattern Overlay with the following settings.

Color Overlay
Pattern Overlay

What’s That Pattern?

The pattern used is called ‘Shredded Plastic’. If you cannot find it, then, in the texture selection drop down, click the arrow and append the Texture Fill 2 set.

Your image should now resemble this:

Pattern Overlay

Step 11: Adding Highlights

Create a New Layer, name it ‘Highlights’. Use a small, white brush with 0% hardness to add some highlights.

Here are the brush strokes on a black background (for illustrative purposes).

Highlight Strokes

Here is the image with the highlights added:

Highlights

Step 12: Adjusting the Highlights

Set the transparency to 70%.

Adjusted Highlights

Step 13: Adding Low Lights

Create another New Layer and name it ‘Low Lights’. This time, use the color black with a 90% hardness to add low lights.
Here are the brush strokes on a white background (for illustrative purposes).

Low Light Strokes

Sloppiness Counts

Dont try to be neat. Be more jagged in your strokes to simulated that coarse stone contours.

Here is the image with the low lights added:

Low Lights

Step 14: Adjusting the Low Lights

Set the ‘Low Lights’ layer to 20%.

White Dots

Download the PSD

Download the PSD