How to Use Textures to Make Your Photo Look Wonderful

In this short tut I will show you how to add a few Textures to an image in order to achieve unique result.

All five images used to create the outcome are my own photos and unrestricted stock. You can use them for your own works without informing me.

You can achieve the effect in any Photoshop version.

This is what you are going to create:

STEP 1

Start your work with downloading this Flower image- click on it to open it in high resolution, then right click and select Save As to place it in your folder.

  

Add Water Textures to Achieve Dreamy Effect

STEP 2

Open in Adobe Photoshop the photo you downloaded in the first step and rename its layer to Flower.

Create a New Layer on top of Layers panel and call it Colorful Water. Press Ctrl+G to put it in a group. Rename your Group 1 to Textures.

STEP 3

Now download this Colorful Water Texture the same way you downloaded the photo in Step 1.

STEP 4

Open the Colorful Water Texture in Photoshop then press Ctrl+A and Ctrl+C to Select and Copy it.

Go back to your original .psd file (the one with the flower), select Colorful Water layer and press Ctrl+V to Paste there the Texture. Apply Edit, Free Transform to resize the Texture so that it covers your canvas. Press Enter to apply the Transformation.

STEP 5

Change Blend Mode of Colorful Water layer to Linear Light.

STEP 6

While Colorful Water layer is selected, click on Add Layer Mask icon at the bottom of Layers pane.

STEP 7

This is how your layer will look in Layers pane after the Layer Mask has been added:

STEP 8

Check if your Foreground/Background Colors are set to Black/White then take Brush Tool and Choose Soft Round Brush- the first one in the Brush Preset Picker. Change its Size to 500px, then start brushing in the middle of the canvas (your Layer Mask thumbnail should be highlighted). Continue brushing until you remove the portions of the Texture that cover the flower. You can leave parts of the Texture on the petal ends. This is the outcome you should get:

STEP 9

It is time to download the following Golden Water Texture:

STEP 10

Create a New Layer on top of Textures group and name it Golden Water. Copy the Texture you downloaded in the previous step and Paste it in this new layer (see Step 4) then resize it using Free Transform. Change the Blend Mode of Golden Water layer to Overlay.

STEP 11

Apply Layer Mask on the Golden Water Texture and using the same Soft Round Brush of 500px Size, brush over the Flower. You can leave portions of the Texture on its petal ends.

STEP 12

Now duplicate Golden Water layer (Ctrl+J) then change the Blend Mode of the duplicate to Screen and reduce its Opacity to 65%.

STEP 13

In this step you should download this Platinum Water Texture:

STEP 14

Create a New Layer on top of Textures group and name it Platinum Water then Paste there the Texture you downloaded in the previous step. Use Edit, Free Transform to resize it so that it covers your canvas, then change the Blend Mode of its layer to Overlay.

STEP 15

Apply Layer Mask on Platinum Water layer and brush inside the Mask with Soft Round Brush of 500px Size to remove most of the portions covering the Flower. Leave only traces on the ends of the petals.

Apply Stone Texture and Soft Brush to add Relief and Vibrant Colors

STEP 16

The last photo you have to downolad is this Stone Texture:

STEP 17

Create a New Layer on top of Textures group and name it Stone Texture. Paste there the previously downloaded image and change the Blend Mode of the layer to Pin Light.

STEP 18

Apply Layer Mask on the Stone Texture layer and remove with the Black Soft Round Brush the Texture in the middle of the flower. Leave the petals ends covered with the Texture as you see on the screenshot below:

STEP 19

Create a New Layer on top of Layers pane and call it Soft Round Brush. Press Ctrl+G to place the layer in a group. Rename the group to Front Effects.

Select Soft Round Brush and set its Size to 250px. Start making dabs on the flower with colors of your choice. As you can see, I have used the following four colors: #07ccf2, #68fb5d, #f28216 and #f00e36.

STEP 20

Change Blend Mode of Soft Round Brush layer to Color and reduce its Opacity to 60%.

STEP 21

While Soft Round Brush layer is highlighted, go to Layer, New Adjustment Layer and select Color Balance. Change its Properties settings as follows:

Midtones:

Cyan-Red: -52

Magenta-Green: -31

Yellow-Blue: -51

Shadows:

Cyan-Red: +29

Magenta-Green: +13

Yellow-Blue: +37

Highlights:

Cyan-Red: -19

Magenta-Green: -11

Yellow-Blue: +24.

STEP 22

This is how your work will look so far after applying Color Balance Adjustment layer:

STEP 23

Navigate again to the Menu bar and choose Layer, New Adjustment Layer, but this time select Photo Filter. When Properties dialog box pops up on your screen, select Sepia from Filter drop down menu and increase its Density to 98%.

STEP 24

Change the Blend Mode of Photo Filter Adjustment layer to Multiply and reduce its Opacity to 40%.

STEP 25

This outcome you should get after following all my steps.

Hope you like this easy to perform tutorial and find it useful. Thanks a lot for reading. If you have questions, please leave a comment below. :)