• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer

Tortoise Productions, Inc.

  • Blog
    • Oot & Aboot
    • Tips & Tricks
  • Galleries
    • Portfolio
    • Our Photography in Use
  • Stock Photos
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
You are here: Home / Tips & Tricks / Textures/Borders

Textures/Borders

October 27, 2010 by Holly

If you’ve read any of my blog posts or seen any of my photography, you’ll know that I’m a big user of textures and borders.

The general idea is to take a texture/border and overlay it on a photograph (using any one of the blend modes offered in Photoshop) to add a little somethin’-somethin’ to the end product.

Some of the borders and textures I use are from Flickr groups that offer textures and borders for free usage. There are a lot of free texture/border groups and websites available on the ‘Net, but these are the three that I have a good relationship with:

Textures for Layers – Texture Whores – Textures and Textures

After seeing one of my textured/bordered photographs, people often ask me “How do you do that?” I tell them it’s very simple, and they never believe me. Well… it’s not a trade secret… so here are my tried-and-true methods of using a texture or border on a photograph.

  1. Pick a texture/border that looks great 🙂
  2. Of all the blend ones “Overlay” is usually the best one to use – but the others can produce interesting results, so don’t be afraid to experiment and see what they look like.
  3. Some of the blend modes completely change the “essence” of a colored texture/border. For this reason, I tend to convert chosen textures/borders to black & white. How?

In PS CS5:

  1. Select the texture/border layer
  2. Make sure your background/foreground colors are black & white
  3. In the PS menu select: Image – Adjustments – Gradient Map

Example: (used in the photo above – texture courtesy of Kerstin Frank art)Before                                       After

I’ve photographed a lot of textures since I started collecting them in 2007. Some are good, some are mediocre. As part of the group culture on the Flickr texture groups is to give back as much as you can, my collection is available on Flickr for usage by other photographers and artists.

Getting a texture photo is pretty simple – see one you like and get a close-up shot of it. 🙂 Alternatively, use motion blur or panning to create a texture!

Here are nine of my favorite textures that I’ve photographed/created in the past year:

All of these textures (and more!) can be found within my Flickr Set “Textures”. I haven’t quite gotten the hang of creating borders, but until then, I’ve got lots of really creative artists/photographers that graciously provide their images to people like me.

Happy Texturing! — Holly Kuchera

The Black & White texture shown above in my block of nine (left column, middle row) was created using a freeware program called IOGraphica. IOGraphica is a mouse tracking program. I’ve only recently started playing with it, but it can produce some very fun results. Here is a portion  of the texture I created using IOGraphica while creating this blog entry:

And, if anyone is curious. Here’s the listing of the what the other images are – Left to right, Top left corner to bottom right:
  1. Bubble Pipes at the Science Museum of Minnesota
  2. A silver tray found at an auction
  3. The brushed metal walls of the “Amber Box” floor of the Guthrie
  4. IOGraphica – 1.9 hrs
  5. Painted loading dock door (secret location)
  6. Motion blurred grasses at the local dog park
  7. Autumn trees on the Applachian trail (vertical pan)
  8. Sidewalk outside IFP in St Paul
  9. “Fibers” exhibit at the Science Museum of Minnesota

 

facebookShare on Facebook
FollowFollow us

Filed Under: Tips & Tricks

Footer

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Instagram

All photographs and content on this site are Copyright (c) 2010-2020 Tortoise Productions, Inc.

 

Site Map

  • Blog
    • Oot & Aboot
    • Tips & Tricks
  • Galleries
    • Portfolio
    • Our Photography in Use
  • Stock Photos
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

Please contact Tortoise Productions, Inc for image licensing and usage.

Image Tag Cloud

2010 2015 action activity animal beargrease Beargrease 2023 canine cold dog dog sled editorial equine Grand Portage horizontal horse human john beargrease John Beargrease Sled Dog Race Marathon Mineral Center minnesota mn motion mushing nature Normanna Trail Head outdoor outdoors outside polo pull race racing sled sled dog snow sport TCPC team transport transportation Twin Cities Polo Club wildlife winter

© 2023 · Tortoise Productions, Inc. · Powered by Imagely

This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Cookie settingsACCEPT
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Non-necessary
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
SAVE & ACCEPT