Superhero Photo Challenge: Play with Textures

Textures. Actions. Everyone seems to be using them these days, right? Like most things technological, I am at first wary of any fancy pants tools. And when I say wary I mean totally intimidated. Then I warm up when I see that it's fun and relatively easy. The next step is to enter utter and total texture/action geekdom. Be warned people, you can spend hours on one photo!

At first it will feel like how photoshop did when you first encountered it. Overwhelming, boundless, how can you possibly try everything out? And after you get over the kicks of liquefying your friends' faces and turning your husband into a colorful mosaic, you get bored. And for me anyway, with the lack of expert knowledge, the images always turned out kinda corny. It became so much more about the effect than the image.

The same goes for textures. I'm learning that you have to start out with a good image or you don't have much to work with. That said, I have also transformed mediocre shots into something really special, and saved my sorry ass when the lighting wasn't quite right. Phew! The next trick is to not overwhelm the image with effects, but use the your tools and not let them use you.

I am not good at being subtle yet... I don't have command of my tools but I hope to. And I've gotten lucky a few times just the same. This week's challenge is to take a photo and use a texture on it! There are some free textures here and here, or the vintage background I used on this shot is here. I'm excited to see what you get! Here are some shots that will give you some inspiration.

Click here for simple instructions on how to use textures. You can also purchase some really affordable textures from the same person, Ash. If you've got the bug and you're ready for a little splurge, there are also gorgeous fine art textures available from Jesh de Rox. His work blows me away...

What are you doing with textures? Have you been playing with them? What kind of results are you getting? What about actions? What are your favorites? Looking forward to seeing what you create.

Comments

[shelbi]

i am so intimidated...can we use these with pse 5? i want to play too!!

[Swirly]

I am so excited to try some of these as I've been loving what you are doing with them!!

[Angela]

I made a texture and I like it just by itself...just put a texture over a picture I took of bokeh...
http://flickr.com/photos/ang_loves_jesus/2301205958/
Here is one I did a while back...
http://flickr.com/photos/ang_loves_jesus/769372208/
I love playing with textures and layers!

[JennB3]

Here is one of my first attempts. It is addictive!
This is the original http://www.flickr.com/photos/23134155@N07/2315282784/
and this is the textured one http://www.flickr.com/photos/23134155@N07/2315283450/in/photostream/

[Kerstin]

Gosh, sometimes I feel like I am so slow on the take-up! I have been a lover of textured photos for a while now and have been wondering how on earth it's done. I finally found some textures in my PS7 but still not quite there yet. Thank you so much for all the links and inspiration!

[Swirly]

Here are a couple of my first creations:

http://sparkletopia.squarespace.com/sparkletopia/2008/3/7/texture-before-after.html

[heathre]

Better late than never :) Here's mine - pretty basic, just playing around with film grain

http://www.flickr.com/photos/heathre/2319096272/

[allie]

oops, i posted this in the wrong challenge before. sorry, here it is hopefully in the right place:)

http://simple-pie.blogspot.com/2008/03/super-hero-photo-challenge-4.html

[Marisa Campbell]

Here one from my son's recent baseball game.

http://luisoart.com/images/ajtexture.jpg

[shelley noble]

I can't thank you enough for sharing this technique and sources, Andrea.

[LindaRU]

Did you take an assistance of a <a href="http://quality-papers.com">custom writing</a> service for your good enough data? I opine that you have unique essay papers composing ability. Thanks so much for sharing this!

[GregoryKristy20]

It is good that people can receive the <a href="http://lowest-rate-loans.com">loan</a> and that opens up new possibilities.

[GillespieChrystal]

I had a dream to make my own organization, however I did not have got enough amount of money to do that. Thank God my close mate said to use the <a href="http://lowest-rate-loans.com/topics/mortgage-loans">mortgage loans</a>. So I received the consolidation loans and made real my old dream.