Starting a Photo Textures Library ~ Blog

The Dictionary defines texture as ‘the way a surface, substance feels when you touch it, for example how rough, smooth, hard, or soft it is’.

I use textures in my images when processing, to give it a tactile look. I started shooting textures a while back, not knowing what I would do with them. When my processing skills improved, I started to experiment with adding textures. In my experimenting I found certain images looked good with textures, I had to think what look I wanted – grungy, vintage, artistic, where did I want the texture to show or not show, what kind of texture to use. The more I played the more I discovered using textures can be fun, artistic and adds something different to different images.

Start your textures library, when you are out next photographing look around you, you might be surprized what you see as a texture to use in your photos when processing. To get you going, here are a few suggestions to think about:

Paint

Painted surfaces can be interesting, particularly old timber buildings, a shiny new coat of paint on a windowsill, an old peeling fence or a thickly layered oil painting.

Stone

Cold, hard, smooth, chipped: stone is a great texture to work with, both in nature and urban settings. A pebbly beach may not seem as tempting a prospect a sandy beach. A glossy marble interior of an expensive hotel or the skilfully crafted contours of an architectural masterpiece remind us that stone can also be one of the ‘biggest’ textures we might choose to photograph.

Wood

Wood is another classic textural subject.

Trees and Leaves

There are plenty of great textural opportunities in nature. Tree bark may be glossily smooth or dry, peeling, and rough. Leaves can be veined, spiky, succulent. Look around your local area or when you are out next with your camera or iPhone.

Metal

Smooth, cool, and reflective, rusty, tarnished, and dull, metal easily gives up its age and provides the photographer with another great texture to work on.

Start looking and photographing the textures in the landscape, in nature and so much more that way you have a Textures Library at your disposal to use when you want to add something different to an image.

Have fun!

Several textures were used for colour grading and a tactile look

Each image has a texture applied to give a different effect.

I added textures to each image to add a coloured and textured look to the sky or on the whole image.

This award winning image I applied a texture to give the green/yellow colour I was looking for.

A texture was added to give a snow feel to this image.