Manipulated with multiple layers and textures with a gradient fill in Photoshop CS4. Colors are not as true as in photoshop.

Thanks to Pear Biter for allowing his image to be manipulated under Creative Commons www.flickr.com/photos/pearbiter/566128230/

After the last few posts on working with textures in Photoshop CS4, I thought I’d do some searching and share some links for free textures. I do think however, that one should go out an shoot their own texture files to create a unique image of your own vs. using someone else work.

29 Most Useful Texture Packs of 2008 – Has a great selection of links to earth tone and vintage style textures.

31 Most Colorful Collection Of High Quality Free Texture Packs – Another good site that did all the work for you, finding great textures.

Texture King – Currently has 337 free texture files.

40 Excellent Photoshop Tutorials for Textures and Backgrounds – A good source for creating your own textures.

CGTextures.com – This site is huge, but unfortunately it is a paysite, but worth checking out.

I played around with the Seattle image a bit more from this post, adding an image I was able to get through the NASA website. This is a gold mine for texture images and other than for advertising, they are in the public domain.

Check out the NASA gallery and start adding to your texture library.

Tonight I was giving CS4 a good workout and thought I’d work on some portrait images just for fun. These both came out a bit better than I expected and you’ll see in the second image, I added a gradient to neutralize the skin tones as well as some textures on the outer edges. I was also going for a more creamier feel to the skin. Unfortunatly the web image just doesn’t come out with the right tone as a large .PSD file does.

I did a bit more work on the first image above, with Edna, shaping her nose and mouth somewhat but not wanting to make it look unrealistic. I also tried to maintain the skintone and pores when working with the skin which is always a challenge. This work can be tedious and there really is no way around it other than having a great makeup artist and lighting to get it right.

I have been driving around my Macbook Pro with my new version of Photoshop CS4, trying to learn all the little nuances hidden under the hood. Somehow I got sidetracked and ended up at istockphoto.com looking at textures. Don’t ask me how, it just happens when one has a period of boredom, followed by flashes of inspiration and then some temporary forms of ADHD. Anyway, so I did a search on textures as I wanted to work with some layers in Photoshop and play around with some images I shot over the weekend in Seattle. Not having any textures at the ready, I found this one of a tuscan wall that I figured would work perfect. Yeah I had to pay for it, but I wanted it now and did not have my Europe images close by and the time to spend hours hunting for a texture. Besides I I started looking at my old Europe CD’s, I’d end up on some other tangent and never accomplish my goal , so I bought it.

Originally I was going to use and image of Post Alley by the Pike Place Market, but felt that the Seattle image would work a lot  better. In the upper left corner, you can see the original texture file as well as the Seattle photo I used.

So, let’s see step by step how I created this.

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Photographer Bill Simone steps through some of his workflow in creating the above image. Though I think HDR can be a bit overdone and has become the rage for the past two years or so, but Bill really created a beautiful image without overdoing it. Also check out his Boxer post. This was a great composite image, taking you step by step through the process.

Seeing work like this convinces me I need to use more post processing. I have always been a minimalist when it comes to working my images, because I think the job needs to get done in the camera and not on the desktop. I also fought moving to digital from film and going back to film would be pretty tough at this point. My CS4 upgrade arrives next week, so I guess I’ll need to get to work and get some help from the masters like Bill Simone.

For those of you who love to play with Photoshop, check out this list of my favorite .PSD files. A .PSD file is basically a template that has multiple layers you can customize to create buttons, sample iphones, etc. Most of these should be compatible with Photoshop CS4, but I just ordered my upgrade so am unable to verify.

The Green Planet

This one will be very popular with everyone talking about going green. Download Link

Skateboard Template

This is probably one of the coolest templates I have run across. For those of you who want to design your own skateboard layouts, this will be a perfect template for you. Download Link

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The other day I was talking to a friend about photography and was trying to explain the concept of how depth of field works and how an aperture controls DOF. He was asking me how to make image backgrounds fuzzy in Photoshop, he didn’t understand I had done it in camera. With our automatic cameras, I understand people really become lazy and do not understand how changing a shutter speed or aperture settings can change their photos. I went over to one of my favorite websites, Deviantart.com and shared a tutorial I had bookmarked a while back, to explain the concept. I know for me personally, I shoot 95% of my work in aperture priority mode. So for me, I think it is important for others to understand this concept.

Also check out this link for many more excellent tutorials. They have done a great job of clearly explaining each concept from Macro Photography to High Contrast Black n’ White

Suggested donation is $10, but feel free to donate what you can afford. A minimum donation of $2.00 is required to help with processing fees. You will be allowed an immediate download of the action, once you complete your donation. Just put this in your actions folder. Search for .atn files if you are unsure where they are located. Also check out this tutorial, if you are still confused.

This is probably my favorite Photoshop action yet. Take a B&W image and create a night vision photo in Photoshop, in less than a minute. This is an easy to run action that introduces you to Lighting Effects, Adding Noise and working with Grain. Just open an image and run the action and it automatically creates a Night Vision image for you. Images below are actual samples created from this Night Vision Action in less than 10 seconds.

Click for immediate download and a simple donation to help me maintain this site.

Sample Images using Terry Divyak's Photoshop Night Vision Action

I get a ton of traffic here, so thanks for checking out the blog if you are a regular visitor. I thought I would post a reminder that you can subscribe via feedburner to be up to date on the stories I post. It takes about 15 seconds and if you use my.yahoo.com, posts can become part of your  front page, just like other news stories.

Two hundred plus visitors a day has been a nice surprise for such a young blog, so it will make me work even harder to bring everyone relevant content like PS tutorials and photos from 200+ models I have worked with.

I’m also debating about adding another feature, a behind the scenes look at building a photography based business which I am in the process of doing. If you feel this would be of interest, add a comment.

For a tutorial in Photoshop, on how to create the feed design, Click here