Coffee With Colleen: Using Textures Tutorial and Amazing HUGE Texture Giveaway! - CLOSED!

The giveaway is closed to new entries and I will be posting the winner's name and email tomorrow!!!  And until the end of the month all of my readers get 15% off each textures pack if they use the coupon code coffee!!!



I meet Colleen of Chasing Dreams Photography when she asked me to design her blog.  I checked out her website and noticed she was selling gorgeous textures and she told me that not only would she would love to offer all four sets as a giveaway to one of my readers, but she would be interested in writing a tutorial on using textures for my blog. Anyone that will send me a great tutorial AND giant amazing giveaway and let me have the evening off is going to be my friend.  I heart Colleen!  The giveaway information is at the bottom of this post.  :-)

I also wanted to mention Colleen sent me her textures and they are gorgeous and worth every penny.  If you don't win the giveaway please go visit her site and check them out.  Support small businesses!

My Name is Colleen.
 I am a wife and mother to six children. Four boys born to me and two little girls born in my heart. I was lucky enough to have very creative role models in my life. My grandfather had a small photography business as his side job and my grandmother was a music teacher and artist. I grew up being encouraged to get my hands dirty with paint, create my own recipes with Grandma's help, learning to play the piano by ear and embracing my creativity that Grandma reminded me often was unique because it belonged to me. Back in 2005 my youngest son and I traveled to China to bring our youngest daughter home. My husband bought me my first DSLR to bring with me on our magnificent journey. I was instantly hooked on digital photography and wanted to learn more and more. Once home with our daughter I was so disappointed in the quality of photography I was paying for that I started taking photography workshops both in class and online. My goal was to photography only my family. My business has grown from family to a few neighbors. I started developing my own line of textures and overlays in late 2009. My goal was to create a set of textures that were both beautiful and affordable. My first set sold so well that I started creating a second set...and so on. I recently started teaching private online photo shop classes and working on a new line of templates. I consider myself to be a natural light photographer but the title I am most proud of is "Mom".  Website  Blog


This is a tutorial on the use of texture. Textures can be so much fun and can be applied in many different ways. I'm going to show you two ways to use texture in this tutorial.

Start out by bringing a photograph in to Photo Shop. In the upper left hand corner of the menu bar click on file tab and scroll down to place. Once you click on place you will then need to find where you have saved your textures. Pick a texture, click OK and it will place the texture on top of your picture.

Once the texture is placed on top of the photograph you will then need to stretch it to fit over top of the photograph and click on the check mark to lock the texture in place (please see diagram below).

I'm going to use the same texture twice but in two different ways. Once the texture is locked in to place duplicate the texture layer (ctrl-J). Turn off the duplicate layer while we work on the first texture layer. With the first texture layer highlighted change the blend mode (I used overlay but it's fun to play around with different blend modes) and lower the opacity until you are happy with the amount of texture. You will want to create a mask by clicking on the mask tab at the bottom of the layer panel (see diagram below, if you have PSE download Rita's free layer mask action). Grab a medium/big soft black brush (I usually use a brush size between 100-500 depending on the area that I am removing texture from and  lower the opacity of the brush some where around 30%) wipe the texture off of the skin and any other area that you don't want to have texture. I usually lower the opacity of the brush to around 15% when I wipe around the edges. The subject will blend better with a little texture left on around the edges.

Now we are going to work on our second texture layer (duplicate layer). With this layer we are going to remove the texture from the subject without removing the color of the texture. This will make the the picture blend nicely. Highlight the duplicate layer. I changed the blend mode to Soft Light and lowered the opacity to 9%. Right click on the layer. Look for the "Rasterize" and click on it. (See diagram below)

Click back on the background layer. Grab the lasso tool from tool menu. Outline the area that you want to remove the texture from. I outline the entire body. I did not want texture on her clothing. (see diagram below)

Click back on the duplicate texture layer. Go to the filter tab at the top of the menu bar. Scroll down to blur and click on "average" (See Diagram below). This will automatically remove the texture from the area but leave the color. Click on ctrl-d to get rid of the dancing ants. You can play with the opacity and blend modes until you are happy with what you see.

To flatten the image go to "Layer" on the menu bar and click on Flatten (see diagram below).

Here is the finished picture (see diagram below). I often will add a vignette or do a little dodge and burn before closing the picture.

Now, for my giveaway!  One lucky CoffeeShop reader will win all four of my texture sets as seen below just by commenting on this post.  Please only comment once and leave your email address so I can email the winner.  :-)  The contest will be closed on Thursday, Sept. 16th, at 10 PM central time zone.