Skip to main content

Customizing Frames and Textures

Lesson 30 from: Adobe Photoshop 101

Ben Willmore

Customizing Frames and Textures

Lesson 30 from: Adobe Photoshop 101

Ben Willmore

buy this class

$00

$00
Sale Ends Soon!

starting under

$13/month*

Unlock this classplus 2000+ more >

Lesson Info

30. Customizing Frames and Textures

Next Lesson: Saving for the Web

Lessons

Class Trailer

Day 1

1

Adobe Bridge Basics

27:08
2

Sorting Images in Adobe Bridge

29:24
3

Processing Images in Adobe Camera Raw Part 1

29:42
4

Processing Images in Adobe Camera Raw Part 2

34:57
5

Image Processing Q&A

08:13
6

Contrast and Color

18:15
7

Adjustment Brush and Auto Mask

16:19

Lesson Info

Customizing Frames and Textures

Let's talk about then if you want to capture your own textures and you want to make your own borders, what do we need to do to them to prep them? So they're set up like this so you can easily use them. So this was created? I don't know. My wife, karen, created this, so I don't know exactly, but I can guess how was created. If you were to grab a white sheet of paper, grab a paintbrush, dip the paintbrush in ink and just paint a shape and let that brush start to dry out a little bit as you get towards the edges, you get this kind of painterly look, and this was most likely cleaned up after it was scan to make sure the center of it was ended up being black, because if your brushes drying out when you fill in the center, you'll probably still get the brush strokes, and so it was most likely cleaned up afterwards. So you get that you you draw yourself on a sheet of paper and let it dry and then scan it or modern day take a picture of it, because these days people seem to not have scanners a...

nyway. More so take your camera if you do just get lined up nice too it clicked take a picture or if you don't need it to be that high rez, use your iphone, take a picture of it you could get that loaded in the photo shop when you first loaded into photo shop what it'll look like is I'm gonna adjust this I'll do it to a larger extreme than you'll run into, but when you scan it in what'll happen is the white sheet of paper will not come in this white there'll be something there you might see the texture of the paper in the black of the thing you scan in will not be perfectly black, it will be ninety six percent grey or something not solid black we need to adjust it to get it so the paper has no detail whatsoever in turns white in that the thing you painted eyes solid black to do so you do levels and this is where you don't need an adjustment layer because we want it to be permanent so levels in levels what you'll find is they'll be history graham and in the history and there'll be two very distinct humps the humps will usually be much wider than these I don't know if you recall or not when I had the graphic that said happy birthday with a cake next to it I also used levels and when I did, there were two humps, but they were much wider there moored well defined than this what you're going to do is take the upper left slider in levels in bring it in until it's in the center of the first hump you're going to take the upper right slider and bring it in until it's at the end of the other hump what those sliders do is this they take whatever is directly below this slider whatever is this shade of grey in our picture or darker enforces it too solid black and so if you have a hump in your bar chart right there that's where your actual writing was that you had in there and we're simply forcing anything that was that bright or darker the black, then there's usually going to be a huge hump over here that'll be relatively thick in by moving this slider to the other side of it. If you go straight down from this, this is going to take anything that's this bright or brighter and make it white that's going to actually force the paper itself toe white so therefore will have a black graphic on a solid white uh, paper and you'll cook okay then do you remember how we did some quick mask mode where somehow we get a selection out of things that was based on what we paste it in it was the thing that said happy birthday and had the cake, uh, well, we've already done the prep needed for that in that we've adjusted this to make it pure black and pure white, so you could just select on copy type, cue to turn on quick mask paste to pace it into quick mask and then type keeter turn off quick mask always gotta quick mask is if we're gonna paint to make a selection, we pasted that in we turn quick mask off, and now we have a selection where the selection is is all the white parts. This is where you might think you could hit the delete key to get rid of that area that's surrounding it, and you could, but I usually instead do the following. I'll go to the select menu and choose inverse that gives me the opposite, and then I create a solid color layer because that solid color layer is going to be in the shape of the selection selections gonna limit where it shows up and I can choose any color I want, I just throw away the original wear so there's, no hint of it in the file at all, you have to play by, play out back to see every little step, but we've prepped this now. We can change the color to anything we want it's a solid color layer but most of time it's going to get end up being covered with a photo so it's not going to matter what color it is but it's nice just in case you wanted to use that as a backdrop for some text or something where you do see the whole shape and so that's prepped then let's say I wanted a photo to put in there no I can't decide which one I used my move tool tried that over drag it down and I'll clip it just like we did anything else now type command tea to transform and scale it so it doesn't go out too far but make sure it covers everything I want that little cross to stay there okay uh then let's have some texture so let's go get texture and let's talk about what would you do if you're going to end up capturing your own texture because there are some keys about that if you notice the brightness of these two textures do you notice this one might have brighter highlights than this one but in general if you were to squint your eyes so you cannot see the detail there the same brightness overall and so is this one even though it has color there's a reason for that so I'm gonna grab one of these and open it and let's bring it over here if you ever see this warning come up choose don't show again and click okay don't even read it dobby has so many warnings that in the end don't matter they matter to people that are like experts and color but they scare people that are not experts in color and in general the default setting for most of those warnings means just make it look right and so if you see a warning like that one uh I'm amazed that until he puts those in for mere mortals remember how we applied our texture on by the way I put it in the wrong document this one doesn't have our frame in it when we drag it over the other one there it is there you uh I'm gonna come in here and clip this and I'm gonna miss that its bloody mode to overlay and if it's not enough I can try the others and let's talk about then what do we need to do to make our textures work ok using these blending moz we'll all of the bloody modes that aaron this general section right here I have a some common ideas in what it is is whatever's in that layer we look at the other foxes has a kind of a black and white one wherever there's fifty percent gray whatever's in that layer will just disappear it won't show up at all fifty percent grade goes away in all those blending boats anything that's brighter than fifty percent gray will brighten the image that's underneath. So you see the highlights in there? They're going to brighton what's underneath anything. It is darker than fifty percent gray will darken what's underneath and that's how all the bloody modes in that general section work. So what we want to do is make sure that whatever texture we we use if you captured it yourself, that on average is close to fifty percent gray it's not really brighter than that. Not a lot darker than that it's on average close to it. So the way you do that is if you captured a texture, you goto levels fifty percent gray is in the middle halfway between black and white. Do you notice on this one there's a hump and most textures there'll be a relatively prominent hump, which you want to do is grab this middle slaughter and point it right at the hump that's the hump is whatever shade is most prominent in the picture takes up a lot of space in the picture, and we want to make sure that whatever shade that is this, the shade little disappear when we put it in overlay or soft light mode and this slider that's in the middle of levels forces things to fifty percent gray when I pointed at this hump oh whatever is directly below that, whatever used to be this bright in our picture becomes fifty percent. Craig so let's, just say I had a texture that I won't use levels I use something else was darker when I first shot it, and I come in here toe levels. Do you see the hump in dc it's off center? That means it's darker than fifty percent gray? That means if I apply this texture using one of those bloody modes it's going predominately darken my picture because anything darker than fifty percent great, we'll darken the image, so I want to get whatever is the most prominent whoever takes up the most space and that image to be fifty percent grade. So I take this slaughter, I point it right at the center of the hump, and then if I reopen levels, he'll find the hump is shifted over upside crowd the wrong thing. Now, do you see the humps in the middle that's fifty percent gray in those bloody modes, fifty percent grade goes away on ly things darker than fifty percent grade darken things brighter than fifty percent gray brighton. So now when I apply this texture, the brightness of the photograph underneath shouldn't change radically other than the cause of the texture, you know, like the highlights and shadows in the texture. But overall, the brightness of the picture should stay about the same, so you want to adjust all your textures after you shoot them. So wherever the big hump is in the history graham, you move the center slider and levels two point right at it and that's going to make it. So whatever takes up the most space in there is fifty percent gray in brightness, then the other thing is, if year texture contains color, color will be applied to the image, and if I turn this texture off and back on again, you can see some yellow coming in over here in some other colors, varying if you don't like that, then simply choose image adjustments de saturate that means pull all the color out, make it black and white, and you'll notice a lot of the textures that we have are already black and white because we didn't want the color in the texture to influence color of the picture. We just wanted the texture we didn't want the color shift, so if I choose to saturate now, all the color that's in this is from the original picture. But now if I zoom up close and you look at it, can you see the texture you're zoomed out it's not always easy to see, but if I hide it there's before just looks like a photo after though it looks like it's been printed on some sort of a wall or something, doesn't it? In the combination of having that kind of an edge on their photo and having the texture can make for a pretty interesting looking image? Some people really love it others hate it because you're like it's not my photo you're messing with, you know it's up to you, but I like it then just like on the other image, what you can do is add a layer mask to your texture and now you could paint and if you paint with black at one hundred percent capacity, you will completely remove that texture so I could do that maybe on this vertical of spirt that's there you could then turn your opacity to fifty percent somewhere paint somewhere else you'll get half the strength of the texture and so you can vary it and if you vary it then you control you can influence mohr where somebody's eye is drawn because they'll be drawn to where there's less texture because the texture makes the rest of the photo more generic in that the detail isn't unique where's that one spot that doesn't have the texture has less of it you're ike to be drawn to because it's not the same textures everywhere else and if it makes any sense but and then finally if we move our photo up a little bit sometimes you want to cheat if I'm going to focus let's say I had that border, I have this thing clipped to it and I want the spire to just stick out. Come on, it's, just a tiny little thing to stick out. I don't know if you call that a spire that's what I'm calling it I'm going to duplicate this layer or I could work on the mask that's underneath it if I want, uh, let's see that show you some unique stuff. Do you remember that you can disable a layer mask? Never seen a red x through it once? I don't remember how, but you could do it the way that you disable layer mask is you hold down the shift key and you click on it. Okay, so let's do that the laywer mass that's limiting where the photos showing up is on the bottom layer, I'm gonna hold the shift key and click on it so now it's no longer limiting where that layer shows up, then I'm going to zoom up up here where the area is that I want to pop out of that bordering effect problem is, I can't see where the boarding effect would usually apply because the mask is hidden it's it's not hidden it's disabled, but then wasn't there away where you can actually view the layer mask is a red overlay red over like he was a cif it was a marching ants that's close it's backslash backslash one of those two I'm gonna hit backslash to view it now is a red overlap even though it's disabled not really affecting the image right now I could still do it and I can also paint on it so if I paint on it right now no real small brush I'm going to get the red stuff the red stuff is where the image won't show up off of that cross but sending a quiet yes they're like oh whoa so we're simply disabling it because otherwise the area where I'm paying right now would be hidden I wouldn't be able to see where to paint but it's hard to tell where you've painted and what's going on if you're not viewing the mask are you not viewing the effect of the mask? So we've done two things we've ended up disabling the mask so you can see the entire layer and we ended up um viewing the mask is an overlay so I can tell where it would usually show up until therefore if it's uh lining up and I think this is gonna be good enough here something about like that I can't tell if this is a notch ok? And then we needed undo all that stuff so let's see to view the mask it was backslash let's click backslash again and turned off, and then to disable the mask it was shift clicking on it so it's shift click on the mask again, and now you see the top of that thing that's amount popping out so there's always a bunch of little things you can do all those little tips that I show you a ce far as disabling things and viewing them is overlays have so many uses it's ridiculous and it's just a matter of getting enough practice with it, we're become second nature, so your brain is not no longer thinking about what was it to disable instead even actually know how to disable could have done it so many times, and then if you know how to naturally get it, tio overlay, because you've done it so many times, it's second nature, then it's no problem combining the two concepts, but if you're not used to disabling it, you're not usedto overlay it heck, you're not even used to using it then doing something like that you have to read to step by step instructions to figure out how to do it. But if you practiced enough times, then you can combine it together with no problem, so it all depends on what stage you're at questions or anything way of seaquest is a few questions about why you would scan that in the black background, the shape in instead of just painting it and photo shop is there an advantage to that? Or is that just your processor? Well, I find things in photo shop usually looked like they were created in photo shop. I don't know if a brush that makes it look exactly like that I know of ones that make it look somewhat semi random, but it usually it looks a little bit more digital to me. There are some exceptions that can make it look better like this, you can create something somewhat like it if you have a walk on graphics tablet where you get pressure, sensitivity it's nice, and then there are some things in his wet media brushes and other things where you could pick up the pressure sensitivity of your brush and you can get some things that look nice, and if you're versed in how to use the brushes like that, then go for it and that's not a bad thing to do, but I find it's also a great thing to do things to incorporate things from the real world into it, because it just gives it a more natural feel. I love doing things like splattering paint on a sheet of paper, I mean, dip your hand in the thing of paint. Down on shia paper flick it out on the shia paper you'll find photo shop doesn't have anything that makes it really look like it does when you do that where there's little splatter marks everywhere let it dry scan it in now you get your pick actually show up inside that shape you know kind of thing and as you're walking through the world there are so many textures around there so varied that to try to make him in photoshopped you could do that and I don't I would not suggest that there's just so many of them out there to grab that when you have your camera it's just a matter of mentally starting to get used to thinking about it I was in this room I would take about six pictures of this table has got great texture uh and I could probably collect easily thirty textures in this building just by walking around in five minutes uh but mentally you're used to ignoring textures because you're so used to him and so if you don't want to think about capturing him like I say we have textures and the texture packs you can see a digital mastery dot com there we have a full twenty page guide that shows you how to do even more with ease but I think what I'm showing you here is enough to get you started and uh hopefully you enjoy getting some texture and shape into your images what would it look like to print that on campus so it's like if you had a canvas effect and you printed it on campus, somebody had a question about you're going to just notice the canvas texture that you've applied less because there's real canvas texture in there I find these look better if you print them on paper that doesn't already have a good amount of texture because otherwise the one textures either competing, competing with the other one or just blending into the other the more the area beyond the edge of your photo is detail less the maur the texture applied your picture is going to pop out so it's personal choice years but it's not a problem printed on campus there's just no need to apply campus texture if you got a real campus to print out, so I'm just going to put a solid color layer behind this that's full of white so that checkerboard uh isn't so distracting back there and also I'm going to click on the layer that contains the shape we have and I'll do one other thing and that is I'll add a drop shadow if you can see the drop shadow will turn the preview check box off before or after you see a slight edge I can also do all sorts of things some most people overdo it let's see, we can add a bevel in boss they'll get the edge to pop out but usually it starts looking to digital to me if I stopping it up some it can be okay, but let's see if you can see a difference if I zoom up before after I think the bevel on boss makes it a bit too much but but the drop shadow alone so to drag the bell in boston trash um drop shadow sometimes it doesn't hurt. Okay, question in here. Yeah isn't our, uh, if I recall correctly a shortcuts for clipping bye bye. Clicking the mouse yeah, there is layers. Yep on you know how when we had a picture uh here all unclip this I'll release the clipping mask so that now the texture goes beyond and it doesn't look bad on the texture goes beyond the picture even in this particular case um but there is another way of making that layer clip to what's underneath. You don't have to go up here to the layer menu and say create clipping mask there's also keyboard charcot that's listed right there that's option command g and what the other short cut is is we can come down here move my mouse between two layers on the line that divides those two layers that's where you want your mouse to be positioned, hold down the option key ultima windows and click in older versions of photo shop a few versions ago, the icon that you saw there looks different. Instead of looking like a rectangle with a down pointing arrow, itl it's like two circles overlapping. And when you, after you click, it looks like one circles being clipped by the other. Where the part of the circle goes away. I'm not sure why they changed it, but they did it some point. So, yeah, that's. The other way of doing it in photo show there's, almost always more than one way of applying something.

Class Materials

bonus material with purchase

Files
Course Guide

Ratings and Reviews

a Creativelive Student
 

Ben, thanks again for this course. I have taken and purchased quite a few of your courses to date. I keep thinking I will only watch to make sure I am on the right track and you always bring more to the table than the last course. Your teaching methods are the best, sorry to all the other instructors from Creative Live, but you are very easy to understand and you speak in layman's terms so we all can understand. I am following your instructions and working along with your files and it is the best! It is hard to keep up with you even when I watch you on one computer and work with the same files on another computer, to do what you are doing...impossible but I gain so much by trying. You provide so much info on each topic, it is amazing. Thanks to Karen for the PDFs, she does a fantastic job and also, for her templates/layout documents. Thanks again and to anyone who thinks this is too much money for all the videos, the exercise files and the instruction PDF, I am sorry to say but you are mistaken.

John Taylor
 

Like all of the Creative Live courses, excellent training. Ben does a great job of explaining the entry part of Photoshop. A lot of things cleared up in my head and i like his easy pace into this complex program. Thanks Ben.

Cecily
 

I had several "lightbulb" moments with this class, after many years of photography and when you think you know it all, you don't :) Ben Willmore is an excellent tutor, with his many years of experience teaching PS, he obviously knows the types of things a lot of us struggle to understand. I learnt a lot about Bridge, and have since implemented these things into my everyday workflow, so much easier to sort out what I want to keep etc.. Thanks so much Ben and Creative Live. Thanks also to Ben's wife for her amazing work creating the Guide etc. Even though being in Australia, I pay more for the courses (the conversion rate, the aussie dollar is low at the moment) it's very worth it to me. I have paid more for courses here, and learnt next to nothing. Thanks again.

Student Work

RELATED ARTICLES

RELATED ARTICLES