What is a Texture?

Noun: The feel, appearance or consistency of a surface or substance

Verb: To give something a rough or uneven texture

They are a great way to add additional details to designs and make them look more interesting. Key elements that are used when using textures in photoshop are blending modes and clipping masks.

Blending mode: An effect you can add to a layer to change how the colours blend with colours on lower layers.

Clipping masks: They are a great way in which you can tell a layer above to only affect the layer it is clipped to, thus giving you more control.

To make my textures, I used the website texturelabs.org and picked out three different textures to experiment with, I wanted to use ones that were completely different so I could also experiment with the colours of my shapes.

I used the clipping mask tool to add the textures onto my shapes which I did by importing my texture into photoshop and right-clicking on the texture layer and clicking clipping mask which then made my textures visible within my shapes.

After applying different textures to my shapes experimented with different blending modes to see what would happen, here I used the linear dodge blending mode and I found that the colours of my shape then attached to the textures which I found would be great to use if you were doing a design where you still wanted to see the colour in your image with a texture.

After trying using textures on shapes I wanted to try and use it on work I had created, using a paper texture I used this on a drawing I had created.

I really like how this came out and it makes look like this was hand-drawn instead of digitally which I think is really cool.

Overall, I believe textures are a quick and easy way to make what could be boring imagery into something fun or just an easy way to add more to your image. In future, I would like to incorporate textures into my designs and experiment more with the different blending modes.