Photoshop® Custom Textures - Part Two

Customizing The Sandstone Texture

This second tutorial on the subject of custom textures shows how to take further advantage of the use of custom textures via the command:

Filter > Texture > Texturizer > Load Texture

Creating a new adjusted texture from a default texture is the topic of this tutorial. You may ask, "Why would I need to adjust a default texture provided by Photoshop® ?" The images below illustrate the point:

Both images have the sandstone texture applied to their backgrounds. However both images have custom textures applied. The image on the left has a more coarse version of the sandstone texture and the image on the right has a finer version. Short of making your own custom textures there is only one way to accomplish the above effect:

Resample the image up then apply the default texture for a more fine appearance, or...
Resample the image down then apply the default texture for a more coarse appearance.

Note: Although the filter has a "Scaling" feature which allows you to vary the coarseness of the texture, this tutorial provides a means to vary the texture outside the limits of the scaling range.

It is undesirable to resample the image, then apply the texture, then resample the image again to its original size because the image will lose data in the process. So here is how you do it.

1. For this exercise we will make two RGB images each having a resolution of 72 pixels per inch. Make one 2" x 2" and one 8" x 8":

2" x 2"


2. Set the foreground color to a medium gray (Red=128, Green=128 and Blue=128), then flood fill both images with the medium gray foreground color. Next apply the default sandstone texture to each image:

Filter > Texture > Texturizer > Sandstone

Then select:

Scaling=100%
Relief=7
Light Direction=Top

Then Click "OK".

3. Next duplicate the 8" x 8" image twice with the command:

Image > Duplicate

4. You now have three 8" x 8" images and one 2" x 2" image each filled with the same texture. Maintain a resolution of 72 pixels per inch and resample each image according to the following::

2" x 2" - resample to 4" x 4"...makes the coarse texture
8" x 8" - resample to 6" x 6"...makes a fine texture
8" x 8" - resample to 5" x 5"...makes a extra fine texture
8" x 8" - resample to 4" x 4"...makes an super fine texture

The finished textures are shown below:

Coarse	Fine
Extra Fine	Super Fine

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