How To Choose A Texture For Your Image.

Above are textures I’m trying out for a recent macro I shot of this Love-in-a-Mist flower.

When you first get started using textures, you’re bound to wonder how one decides which texture to use and what blending mode to start with. While it does get easier as you gain experience, using textures is all about exploring. I still spend a lot of time playing with different textures, combinations of textures, blending modes and even how much or little mask to apply. Even when I quickly find something that I think is working, I’ll often try something else just to make sure my first choice was the best. Sometimes I like to try something that I think probably won’t work just for the fun of it. The results can often be delightfully unexpected.

How to know which Blend Modes and Opacity to use? Experiment, experiment, experiment! A good starting point is usually Multiply, but try all of them. In some of the stronger modes like Color Burn or Hard Mix, these are usually best used at a fairly low opacity, but not always.

Below is a screen capture of the layers.

Which version do you like?

In upcoming posts, I’ll tell you about ways to make exploring textures easier, such as duplicating your layer mask, or even grouping the textures. Have fun!

Love-in-a-Mist image by Leslie Nicole. ©2010