The Daily Texture for 11/23/2014
Here Comes Winter
"Here Comes Winter" is a texture filled with several shades of gray, along with a touch of black and white. Because the center of this texture is brighter, it's a good area to place your subject. The edges are darker, giving this texture a vignette effect. I used this texture in both the photos below. In "Red Door Farmhouse", the texture is applied at full strength to give this old farmhouse scene a winter look. In "Little Tufted Titmouse", you'll notice the texture appears quite a bit different. Read the tip below to find out how to change the look of the texture.
TIP: When you want the color and the lighting from a texture, but not the roughness of the original texture, you don't have to dive into your texture collections to find a smoother texture. I use Topaz software, and under Lens Effects, I'll choose to diffuse the texture three times at high diffusion to smooth things out. Alternatively, in other software programs such as Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro, you can choose to run Gaussian Blur on the texture layer {choosing a low number for the blur amount is usually sufficient}. You can also try a soften brush or a blur brush on the texture layer if you want to smooth only a portion of the texture.
TIP: When you want the color and the lighting from a texture, but not the roughness of the original texture, you don't have to dive into your texture collections to find a smoother texture. I use Topaz software, and under Lens Effects, I'll choose to diffuse the texture three times at high diffusion to smooth things out. Alternatively, in other software programs such as Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro, you can choose to run Gaussian Blur on the texture layer {choosing a low number for the blur amount is usually sufficient}. You can also try a soften brush or a blur brush on the texture layer if you want to smooth only a portion of the texture.