Textures

Taken at a friends wedding (not that of those mentioned), the effect is only slightly marred by the fact that I lent the cards against a pint of lager

In an attempt to not be quite such an old fuddy duddy all the time I have been experimenting of late with digital post processing of photos. Whilst the gold standard of photography will always be to get the picture as perfect as possible in camera, more often than not something somewhere will go slightly awry. Cue PhotoShop, Lightroom, Aperture or any other of a multitude of suites out there to help process and correct your shortcomings. I have PhotoShop Elements which is basically a stripped down version of the market-dominating behemoth that retains much of the functionality of it's big brother but at about a fifth of the price.

This is one of my favourite shots from my trip to Porto. The old terracotta roofs really lend themselves to the ageing process

As I read about, practice and learn more about photography the more it seems to be the case that pretty much everyone fiddles with their pics to some degree. Those that literally never make any adjustments seem to be regarded as almost puritanical, looked on slightly askance as if they're some sort of idiot savant - brilliant, but slightly odd, and not in a good way. They're bracketed away with those people who will spend two days travelling to a location but always restrict themselves to just one perfect exposure which they'll spend literally all day composing. These people produce superb work but normal people shouldn't, couldn't, be expected to be the same way. 

Another thing that learning more about photography has done is give me the ability to spot more and more modifications in photos wherever I see them be it at bus stops, galleries or in books of fine art photography. I'm not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing yet. On the one hand it can provide inspiration and ideas about new techniques that I might be able to put into practice, but on the other hand an image that previously would have just made me say, "Wow", can now occasionally have me thinking the equivalent of, "I can see the strings". On balance it's probably a good thing. The line between too much modification and just right is entirely subjective. The full spectrum can be seen from fine art puritans at one end to fashion magazines, that seem to deal in works of complete fiction, at the other.

This is the first texture I ever attempted. I was trying to make it look like an old photo that had been printed and mistreated over many years

And so it is that I have decided to play around with these things; obviously the examples here are in no way subtle, this is more than a simple Levels or Curves adjustment. I've deliberately given them all a very aged and antiqued feel; the affect is achieved by blending in a texture layer and the addition of a little vignetting. Different textures will obviously have different effects, and not all photos will lend themselves to such modification so the selection of the two layers you're going to combine is quite important. 


Before I tell you how to go about creating these sorts of photos I'd better let you know where you can get some textures. Luckily, there are lots of very nice people out there who let you have them for free. Go to Flickr and search for 'free textures', this should throw up plenty of results. There are literally hundreds if not thousands  of them there but do please make sure that they are available for use. Check to see if there is a Creative Commons license for the image and if the creator has any conditions of use. Often they will just request a courtesy thank you or a link back to the original texture or something along those lines. There are also good websites dedicated solely to such things like CG Textures. Sometimes you will find that a good photo and a good texture won't necessarily go together; the colours and tones involved and the type of effect you're trying to achieve will all need to be considered in selecting both your starting image and the texture you want to combine it with.

From Vietnam, the old skool bike and conical hat add to the sense of times past

I'm going to end with a quick description of how to go about blending the texture layer into the image you've selected. Unless you own Elements or PhotoShop and intend to actually do this you can probably stop reading and carry on with your life. For the rest of you: sit up straight and pay attention, I won't tolerate slacking. Fortunately, this is actually all quite easy; instructions are for PhotoShop Elements although I'd imagine it's pretty similar for the grown up version. Here's how:

- First up, import your two images into the Elements Organiser and then into the Workspace ready for editing.

- You need your two images to be the same size so go to your photo and click Image>Resize>Image Size. Make a note of the pixel height and width of your image and then go to your texture, follow the same command path and enter in the figures. Make sure you have Resample Image ticked. Your texture will now be stretched or shrunk to the same size as your photo.

- On your texture click Select>All and then press Ctrl+C, go back to your photo and press Ctrl+V. The texture will now appear over the top of your photo as a new Layer.

- It's not really necessary but if you like you can rename the layer to distinguish it from others you might use later by right clicking on the layer in the Layers box on the right hand side and selecting Rename Layer.

- As things stand the texture layer is completely opaque so now we begin the blending process. Making sure you have your texture layer selected on the right hand side (as opposed to Background) simply click the drop down box where it says Normal and select one of the myriad blending options.

- Pick any you like but the most useful will likely be Overlay, Soft Light or Hard Light. Once you have one you like you can also modify the percentage opacity by clicking the drop down box.

- The texture you have selected may have a vignette already in it but if not then adding one in can really contribute to the sense of it being an old photo. To do this select the Background layer and then click Filter>Correct Camera Distortion. This tool is normally used to remove vignettes but in this case we're going to use it to add one in.

- On the right just move the sliders for Amount and Midpoint around until you achieve the effect you're after. You should be careful at this point as this alteration is a permanent one that affects the background of your image. Unless you're certain of what you're doing it is prudent to save a copy beforehand so that you can always go back to it if you mess things up. This is a good tip just in general for when you are playing about with your images.

- For some reason this renames the Background layer as Layer 0. You can either ignore this or rename it again.

That pretty much does it. If you like you can add in a standard Curves or Levels layer to lighten/darken the general palette of the image. Save the image as either a TIFF file or PhotoShop file to preserve all the layers in case you ever want to go back to them later on. You should also save all new images as a JPEG in case you ever want to e-mail them or upload them somewhere, like to an exciting blog that you write.

And that's that; give it a try and let me know how you get on. As I wrote those steps I made a new image to make sure I didn't miss anything out; the texture is most clear in the previously light blue sky and I've applied a pretty heavy vignette to the corners to demonstrate the effect. Here it is:

Ta dah!