Use Textures to Give Photos a "Touch" Factor

Because photographs only exist in two dimensions (height and width) and have no depth (the third dimension), it's important to emphasize textures to give photos a "touch" factor. There are all kinds of textures that can be brought out in a photo, from the slippery smooth surface of wet seaweed to the rough surface of a gravel parking lot. Bringing out the texture is largely a matter of getting close enough to it so that it shows clearly and then using lighting to exaggerate it. Light that comes from the side or the rear of your subject works best because that kind of oblique lighting creates lots of tiny shadows and highlights and it's that contrast that draws out the surface quality of subjects. Sometimes top lighting will also draw out textures, as long as the angle is steep enough. For example, I shot this old peeling carving of a Chinaman with the light coming from almost directly overhead and the lighting created a lot of shadows running down on the face--under the eyebrows, nose, lips, etc. And by filling the frame with just the face, the eye is drawn naturally to the textures. If you're bored someday while shooting, forget about subjects and go look for a texture--you might find that the texture alone is a good enough subject.

Photoshop Tip: Adding Texture Overlays, Part II

Last week I showed you a quick example of what a photo looks like when you add a texture overlay layer to it in Photoshop and I thought I'd explain the process in just a bit more detail. It's really a very simple procedure and it can create some very fun and interesting effects. If you do any kind of graphic arts work or design brochures or newsletters, using texture overlays can be a nice way to customize an otherwise ordinary shot--making a new photo look old, etc.

Basically you only need two things to create the effect: a photo that you want to add a texture too and a texture layer. You can either create your own textures by photographing interesting textures (a piece of canvas or fabric, a close-up of barn siding, a rusted old metal sign surface, etc.) or you can buy them. I bought the texture show here from the FloraBella Collection--they're inexpensive and beautifully done (and you get them in 300 dpi, so if you need to reproduce or print your photos, you'll have all the resolution you need). The set of textures that I bought had three different versions (cold, warm, B&W) of 25 different textures--so 75 textures in all at full resolution for $40. A steal if you ask me. But again, you can easily create your own and that's a fun learning experience. If you are shooting your own textures, try to use side lighting because that will bring up the three dimensionality or "nap" of the textured surface.

To combine your photo and the texture simply open your photo and the texture (separately) in Photoshop (or another editing program) and then use the move tool to drag the texture onto the photo image. Then use the opacity slider (top right of the layers palette) to adjust the density of the texture until you get the level of texture that you want. In the shot above I used an opacity of 29%. You can then also play with layer-blending modes to further enhance the blend (though as I recall I just used the "normal" blending mode for this shot). I did crop the image a tad after combining the two layers.

If you look at the three images above you'll see a) the finished combination b) the before photo and c) just the texture. One thing you have to be sure of is that you have both your original photo and the texture set to the same resolution and color space. Color space usually isn't that big an issue since and I just override the texture's color space to match it with the photo (you'll get a warning screen automatically that will do this for you). If the texture happens to be larger than the photo, you can move it around (again, using the move tool) until it "sits" on the photo where you want it. When you have the image you want, flatten it in that position (or lock the two layers) so that you don't move it around accidentally.

Creating the right positioning and opacity is really a very visual and instinctive thing and it's a lot of fun to play with the various blending modes. The thing I like about the final image here is that it gives the lighthouse photo a kind of "found" old postcard look--like the kind of image you might find while going through a bin of old snapshots at a yard sale.

Any questions, just post a comment and I'll get to them.  By the way, unrelated note, I saw my book Exposure Photo Workshop on an Apple iPad MB292LL/A Tablet (16GB, Wifi) the other day--Wow, is that cool! I've already decided to write my next book for iPad and Kindle only--no print version! No trees will die for my next book!

Experimenting with Texture Overlays

While finishing up the revision of my book the Joy of Digital Photography I did some experimenting with texture overlays and I'll write more about them in a day or two. Basically using an overlay is just a matter of using two images: one of a normal subject, the other of just a texture. You then merge them in Photoshop and create a blend (using the opacity setting) between the texture and the subject. It's a lot of fun and you get some very interesting results. I've been using textures sold by a company called the Flora Bella Collection and, again, I'll write more about this topic and show you what a straight texture file looks like soon. In the meantime, this is Mama Kitty, one of my two cats, and one of the Flora Bella textures.

Enhance Textures in Landscapes with Backlight

Yesterday in my posting about using sidelighting to bring out textures I mentioned that you can often use backlighting to exaggerate textures in landscape photos. I was going through my files and found this shot and it demonstrated that point, so I thought I'd share it.

The scene is in a cemetary in Historic Deerfield, Massachusetts (New England, if you've never been here, is just full of historic old cemeteries) was shot one very cold winter day as the sun was sinking in the west. I was shooting directly into the sun (though the sun was a bit higher than the top edge of the frame.) You can see the shadows of the headstones pretty obviously, but it's the smaller shadows on the surface of the snow that are bringing out the snow's texture. Look at the areas in the foreground and you'll see a lot of texture in the snow and icy surfaces, but look toward the back where the sun has burned out a bit (overexposed) on the snow and you really can't see the textures as well.

Lighting direction is a really fun thing to play with, both in close-up subjects and in landscapes. But the most important thing is just to be aware of it so that you can either exaggerate or subdue textures at will.

Draw Textures Out with Sidelighting

Whether it's the smooth glossy surface of a bowling ball or the coarseness of a piece of sand paper, all objects have a texture. Finding ways to translate that texture in a photograph so people can "feel" the surfaces you're photographing is one of the things that makes photographs seem more real. Remember, the world is a three-dimensional place (height, width, depth) but a photograph only has two of those dimensions--you can't reach in and grab anything or feel it in a photograph (though I'm sure someone is working on that!).

The best way to accent textures in a photograph is by paying attention to the direction of the light as it strikes the surfaces of your subjects and the best light for drawing out textures is sidelight. Light coming from the side casts myriad tiny shadows across the surface of the object and gives it a three-dimensional look. I photographed this old door handle with really extreme sidelight (look at how long the shadow on the left is) and the lighting really brought out the rough-hewn surfaces of the wood and the hand-hammered metal.

Sidelight also works to bring out the textures of things like a sandy beach or a gravel parking lot in a landscape. Backlighting will do the same thing, to some degree, especially if it's late in the day and the light is scraping off the landscape from a low angle. In some situations you won't see as much texture with backlighting because some of those tiny shadows (like the ones cast by sidelighting) are hidden from the camera by other objects.

You can experiment with lighting direction and its effect on texture without much effort. Try photographing a rough-surfaced rock with the light falling on the front of it sometime and then move around the rock and shoot it so that the light coming from the side and you'll see the difference immediately.

Zoom in on Interesting Textures

Whether it’s the soft silky sheen of a baby’s fine hair or the rough bark of an old maple tree, lots of subjects have visually interesting textures. By using your zoom lens to close in on just the texture you’ll reveal a side of a subject that most people ignore. Textures are revealed best when the light scrapes across the surface of a subject, coming either from the side or behind the subject. Early morning and late afternoon are the best times to look for surface textures because that’s when the sun is low and skitters across the surface of the earth creating the shadows that reveal textures.