Add Visual Texture 3 Easy Steps
Rather than continually repeat these simple steps in every tutorial that uses this technique to apply texture, we’ll save everyone time and get this essential tip out of the way!
The use of textures in design are incredibly important in defining a surface. While we can not create actual tactile textures in digital design, we can create the visual illustion of 3D texture. This Tutorial aims to show you an easy way to do just that.
Step 1 – Find a Suitable Texture for your Design
Perhaps you have a photo that you’ve taken yourself, a texture you’ve designed, or maybe you’ve found a free texture to use online. Whatever the case may be, you’ll need a texture to work with.
If you need help finding a texture, we’ve got a large collection of 99 Free Stock Textures which you’re welcome to browse through!
Once you find a texture, Copy > Paste it into a new layer in your design. The texture layer should usually be on top of every other layer in your design (or at least the layers you want to apply the texture to).
Transform the Texture to fit your canvas.
Step 2 – Desaturate
Desaturate your texture layer (Image > Adjustments > Desaturate). We only want to apply the texture over our design, not the color from the texture.
Step 3 – Set to Overlay
Now, set this layer to Overlay. This will screen (brighten) all of the shades brighter than 50% gray in your texture, while multiply (darken) any shades darker than 50% gray, thus giving the illusion of light passing over your design for a more tactile appearance!
Adjust the opacity of your texture layer to increase or decrease the intensity of the effect.
111 Comments
i`m sorry i couldn`t follow your steps….
i`m not good at following tutorials… but now i really need to do it…!!!!
Flag as inappropriateThanks but i didnt understand the last step … but good one!
Flag as inappropriatevist for basic training of photoshop
Flag as inappropriatehttp://training4free.co.cc/Basic%20training/Basic%20training.html
nice but i dont understand the tutorial is too short.
Flag as inappropriatethank for cool tutorial
Flag as inappropriatesuper. tnx for tut! (:
Flag as inappropriatethanks man great tut :)
Flag as inappropriatemuy buena explicación , gracias
Flag as inappropriatewow Cool tip thank for sharing.
Flag as inappropriateThank for tips.
Flag as inappropriateWow thank you! You have saved my skin, been trying to figure out how to do this for ages!
Flag as inappropriateThank for tips.
Flag as inappropriateTY this was really helpful, i’ve caught onto it really well =)
Flag as inappropriatewow coooooooooool…
Flag as inappropriatesee below link find more professional photoshop tips and tutorials
hope its useful!
http://www.tutorials99.com
Thank you for great tip. I think wonderful.
Flag as inappropriatewow Cool tip thank for sharing.143
Flag as inappropriatewow Cool tip thank for sharing.129
Flag as inappropriatewow Cool tip thank for sharing.123
Flag as inappropriatethanks for sharing. So mush
Flag as inappropriateVery simple and very effective, as most of the best design ideas are! One thing to bear in mind for websites – that this will up the file size … but that may or may not be a consideration …
Flag as inappropriateYou know…if you don’t have a book…you should write one. As easy as this was…I’m leaving with the understanding of layer functions more than ever. Very few tuts will do a step by step with simple function explanations and become too wordy (like this!!) Thanks ;)
Flag as inappropriatecool technique
Flag as inappropriateHey thanks David ! I got it and it’s pretty handy !
Flag as inappropriateOMFG, the desaturate and the textual drop shadow was the special sauce I needed. Thanks for the tip!
Flag as inappropriatenice textures
Flag as inappropriateCold and cool text. Easy tutorial
Flag as inappropriateeasy nice and so useful! thanks…
Flag as inappropriateWhats the name of the font you used to write Texture in three easy steps on first picture
Flag as inappropriateIt’s called Bree. At MyFonts.com you can grab it starting at $40 ($240 for the full package).
Flag as inappropriateI’m sorry but this tutorial will not help me. I mean it’s complicated all step’s are not clear.
Flag as inappropriatethis looks good, nice effect…
Flag as inappropriateThis is a reallllllly kewl tut…and this is eeezz to follow…thnx dAvid And ill use this effect on my website’s header
Flag as inappropriategreat texture
Flag as inappropriateWhat font is that? I would like to know how to make that image befor the texture.
Flag as inappropriateThanks
For this Example I really like this
Flag as inappropriateThanks folks :) Especially happy to see the proud Tutorians!
@ Auguso – We do aim to provide tutorials FOR creating presentation materials, but none directly aimed at making better slides at this point. Definitely something I could talk about though.
@ RUGRLN – Do you mean creating better color schemes? Or?
Flag as inappropriate\O/
Flag as inappropriateI’m a tutorian!!! \o/ :D
Flag as inappropriateI absolutely love your site
Flag as inappropriatethe most helpful tutorials i’ve ever read and you’re seriously an amazing designer.
thank you and well done!
x
I was wondering if you could do a tut on how to tweak colours of an image to match it’s surroundings maybe for the School of Ps, cuz I kinda suuck at it.
Flag as inappropriateWow…Thnx alot for the tips, your tutorials are really amazing and easy to follow :)
I would like to make a request though, I am building a presentation and I was looking for something that looked nice, blended, but that wouldn´t escape from the important part, wich is fitting text images and videos inside it!
Any tutorials on that ?
Flag as inappropriateThat’sit?? Well duh!! but very effective
Flag as inappropriateI found myself repeating these steps a lot in some of my other articles, so I thought it would be a good idea to just have an easy article to point people to for one easy technique.
I may add others in the future ;)
Flag as inappropriateTextures play a big part in design, without textures your designless to be quite honest and I think david put’s this tutorial across very well. Could have given a few more tutorials on how you can apply (different scenarious to the extent textures will be used and how they will be used effectively would have benefited this tutorial hugely instead of a one trick example) but apart from that it is very well explained and gives a good in-sight to why textures are important in design.
Flag as inappropriateWow, so simple but priceless. I’m always trying to work textures into design and trying to tweak to color to match the scheme. Thanks for the post!
Flag as inappropriateYeah, that’s what I’m talking about! Love textured anything and this is such a great subtle effect.
Flag as inappropriateAh I forgot about the fourm! I had no where to post them, so I didnt link or anything. I’ll definetly post them there as soon as I can upload them.
Flag as inappropriate“I know a lot of Tutorians (yes, I just gave us a name)”
You have every right to do that, David ;) and it’s not that bad.
Flag as inappropriate@ CJ.H – That sounds nice =) You should definitely consider posting some if you get the chance in the forums! I know a lot of Tutorians (yes, I just gave us a name) would appreciate the effort!
Flag as inappropriateQuite a simple thing, but it was useful for me because textures never come out with the right effect for me. Desaturating makes them look nice. Plus I’m in Spain and there is endless opportunities for taking nice texture pictures there.
Flag as inappropriate