There are 77 Photoshop techniques and Illustrator tutorials across 10 categories.

Photoshop Textures

It is always good to know how to create Photoshop textures from scratch. Especially if you want to make the texture as realistic as possible, you’ve got to have some skills. You will not always find a decent free texture around – although the post mentioned above should help to prevent that in most cases -, or you might not always find exactly what you’re looking for.

Why should you be familiar with these Photoshop techniques?

• You don’t have to rely on third party artwork
• You don’t have to credit third party work because it’s your own
• You don’t have to pay for resources
• You learn to work with texture more
• You improve your workflow
• You improve the quality of your artwork
• You are far more flexible
• You can use the exact texture or pattern you want
• You learn a bunch with these Photoshop tutorials – techniques that you can apply to all your artwork
• You become a better designer with better and more skills

We’re sure you will find a lot more reasons for making use of these Photoshop techniques we present to you. These techniques are just what they sound like – solid, sometimes very quick and basic, and other times quite sophisticated and advanced Photoshop techniques. Not only for creating textures, but for using them as new skills on every one of your artworks; adapt, transform, merge, create, design!

A word in advance

• The following collection of 77 Photoshop Techniques for Textures features Photoshop tutorials, and we also added a few great Illustrator tutorials on some textures. That’s because sometimes, you want to create the same design in Adobe Illustrator (which is part of Adobe Creative Suite anyway) – for a variety of reasons. If you are one of the people who like to use Illustrator in your designs, you will know what we are talking about
• Whenever it’s an Illustrator technique, it’s noted as such.
• Some tutorials are video tutorials. Also in this case, you will find a little note stating that.
• We did not attempt to collect the entire internet. We made an effort to search and put together for you a collection of only the best Photoshop tutorials and Illustrator tutorials on creating textures, patterns and backgrounds – from scratch. That means that none of the following techniques uses stock photography or free textures that you have to download in advance. That’s the point of this post: to show you how to create your own photo-realistic textures from scratch.
• And finally, one more thing: Sometimes, you will find a Photoshop tutorial on creating a text with that texture, for example. In these few cases, we featured the tutorial only because of the creation of the texture in Photoshop (thus it’s a Photoshop technique), and the tutorial itself continues with further steps to apply that texture to an object or another piece. Just remember that the main goal is to create your own Photoshop textures!

Let’s get to it.

Photoshop Techniques: Metal Textures

Let’s start with some cool brushed, shiny, but also dirty Metal textures.

1/ Brushed Metal Tutorial

This Photoshop technique teaches you how to create a brushed metal surface that looks like Aluminium. In the tutorial, you are creating a metal plate with nutbolts – now you don’t need to do the exact same thing, just take the Photoshop techniques used for creating metal . Test this technique for yourself right here.

2/ Stained Metal Photoshop Tutorial

From our reader Jones Hansen at 0tutor.com comes 2nd Photoshop technique for creating brushed metal in Photoshop. It’s slightly different to the above one – you’ll have to find out for yourself which technique serves you better. Go to the page here!

3/ Metal Swirls

This is a great little tutorial for creating metallic swirls in Photoshop. Swooshes, seeds and swirls are very popular anyway in today’s graphic designs – check out how to make them metallic right here!

4/ Brushed Metal Illustrator Tutorial

This is some decent metal for your favorite vector art application, Adobe Illustrator. The advantages of vector art (Illustrator graphics) over raster graphics (Photoshop psd) is that you can scale the former indefinitely. A virtue any graphic designer should value. Check out this great brushed metal texture tutorial right here.

5/ Brushed Metal in Illustrator 2 – Video Tutorial

Yet another Illustrator tutorial on creating a brushed metal texture. A different technique that you will want to take a look at. This is an Illustrator video tutorial by Layers Magazine and you should really try it for yourself.

6/ Rust Texture

This is an excellent Photoshop technique and an absolute must to know about. This rust tutorial is not long or complicated, but the effect you get is stunning and really worth a look!

7/ Rusty Metal Texture

Another Photoshop technique on creating rusty metal, this tutorial is also quick and shows you how to design a rather homogeneous texture. So while #6 above creates a unique and eye-catching grunge texture, this technique is better for dark backgrounds that you wish not to stand out so much. Go there here.

8/ Grunge Metal Rust

Speaking about rust, we couldn’t leave this technique out. The Photoshop effect is quite stunning and while the artist uses this metal rust texture for text, you don’t have to – just adapt the Photoshop technique for any of your designs. Check it out here.

9/ Gold Effect in Photoshop

Bling bling, aaight? Not just for the street but for stunning Photoshop effects, this technique comes in handy. You don’t even have to make it golden, but you can also make this effect bronze, silver, or whatever you like. Try this quick ‘n easy Photoshop effect out right here.

Photoshop Techniques: Grunge Textures

Grunge is popular: dirty, destroyed, ripped, torn, whatever. Here are some excellent Photoshop techniques to accomplish this type of texture.

10/ Photoshop Grunge Splats

What do you call these? We thought grunge splats is the most suitable term, but you could also call them grungy clouds or so. The point is, this Photoshop technique should be in every graphic designer’s portfolio. What’s happening in this huge tutorial over at psdtuts is creating a wallpaper with a retro logo on it – we’re not looking for that (although it’s cool too), but we want the Photoshop technique to create this effect. Check it out here.

11/ Grunge Plate

Metal and rust again??? Well yeah, kind of, but this time we chose to classify it as a Photoshop grunge technique and not as a metal technique. This excellent tutorial takes you from creating grunge textures from scratch to applying it to an artwork – in this case, a decaying metal sign. That’s the only connection to “metal” here. But why don’t you go and see for yourself!

12/ Grunge Stone Wall

A grunge stone wall Photoshop technique that is rather difficult to read, because the tutorial is an image and the type consists of pixel fonts, but this is still a very valuable and excellent skill. You can go there here.

13/ Dirty Stone Text

Again, we’re not looking to copy this Photoshop technique 1:1, but rather to learn about how to create the stone effect in the first place. This tutorial does a pretty good job at that and in the end, you can apply the stone texture to any one of your artworks. Check it out here.

14/ Photoshop Grain Tutorial

A poor little teddy bear has to bear the designer’s doings in this Photoshop grain tutorail. Basically, it’s not about the toy though, but about the technique of using and applying Adobe’s grain filters. Check this piece out here.

15/ How to create Grunge Photoshop Brushes

This quick tutorial shows you a technqiue for creating grunge Photoshop brushes, which you can save and use anytime to apply nice and destroyed grunge textures to your artwork. Photoshop brushes serve well as a tool to apply texture in any way; be sure to view this tutorial here.

16/ Grunge Texture Surface

This is a wonderful Photoshop tutorial on creating a grunge texture surface from scratch. It’s by Stefan Morrell and aimed at 3D game designers – in fact, if you follow this technique, you’re going to create a cool grunge texture for a bunker hatch or so! Nevertheless, Stefan uses some great Photoshop techniques and shows them to us right here.

Photoshop Techniques: Nature

Nature is all around us (should be, anyway…). From wood and trees over rocks to grass, clouds, and snow, here are the Photoshop techniques to create these things and much more.

17/ Wood Texture

If you’d like to create your own wood texture with Adobe Photoshop, then this tutorial is for you. It calls itself the “Ultimade Wood Texture Tutorial”, and as it’s from psdtuts, the tutorial finished off by being branded with their logo – but it’s entirely about creating a realistic wood texture of any size, and an excellent Photoshop tutorial in any case. Go check it out here!

18/ Wood Plate Texture

This Photoshop technique is slightly different from the above wood texture, and it too can produce stunning results. You could use it, for instance, for mocking up a presentation of your work on the computer – for instance business cards: Don’t have a good wooden table around? Just take a picture and apply the wood texture yourself with this technique. Go to this tutorial right here.

19/ Illustrator Wood Tutorial

This Illustrator tutorial shows you how to create wood texture in your favorite vector art program. The tutorial on vectips goes about designing that uneven grainy look – you can then apply the wood texture to your vector illustrations in various ways! It’s not a hard technique at all, and very good to know about. Go there here.

20/ Tree Texture Illustrator Video Tutorial

Want to create a neat looking tree trunk illustration? This excellent video tutorial shows you a very handy Illustrator technique that you can not only apply to wood textures, but also to everything else. Go watch this Illustrator video tutorial right here.

21/ Rock Texture

Extremely realistic results can be achieved with this Photoshop technique for creating a solid rock surface. This texture can then be used for a variety of things, from grunge overlays to dark backgrounds for your website. Go check out this excellent Photoshop technique on creating rock texture right over here.

22/ Rock Texture 2

This Photoshop effect also produces amazing results that look very realistic. With this method for creating rock texture, you are able to create more depth and a different texture altogether. Go test this technique for yourself – right here.

23/ Creating Stones In Photoshop

This is a quick Photoshop technique for creating many single stones. The author of the tutorial uses type to apply this effect to, but you’re not limited to that, of course, Think creating a landscape image with a little creek running through, and with a free path, define the outline of a field of stones. Then use this technique to give them a realistic rock texture. Go see this Photoshop technique right here!

24/ Photoshop Marble Tutorial

As easy and as quick as you can create marble with this Photoshop technique, you might already know it and use it in your graphic designs. It’s one of the easier tutorials, but nevertheless gives you exactly what you want: a marble texture of your own. Go to this tutorial right here.

25/ Grass Texture

Very nice, very realistic grass textures can be created with this Photoshop technique. Again, if you knew it already, it’s nothing new; but for those who didn’t know how to do it yet, this will make your eyes pop. The tutorial also has a free download of the Photoshop psd in the end! Go check out this excellent Photoshop technique right over here.

26/ Turf Textures

Want to design a sports field, or an arena? Maybe a football field? Go ahead and try this simple Photoshop technique on creating even grass, or turf texture. The tutorial even shows you how to design that kind of huge text (usually the team logo) that is usually colored grass. Go see for yourself here.

27/ Mud Texture

Thinking about doing something muddy? Use this Photoshop technique to create some mud! You could also call this peat texture, rather than mud texture, but it remains a good technique to design the look and feel of this stuff. Remember, it’s about the Photoshop technique, so do play around with colors if you like – no need to keep it gray. Go see this tutorial here.

28/ Realistic Clouds in Photoshop

Sure you know the Photoshop filter “clouds”. Sure you know what it does – but how make them realistic? Most of the time, if you don’t know how to use this tool correctly, you’ll end up with a soup of white stuff that maybe only your dog identifies as clouds. Use this Photoshop technique to create realistic clouds instead. Go there here.

29/ Photoshop Ice Tutorial

This nice & quick Photoshop ice tutorial explains how to create ice with icicles using your favorite graphic design application. The tutorial uses text to show you the effect, but you can apply this effect to just about any object you imagine. Go check it out here.

30/ Make Snow in Photoshop

Learn how to make frost and snow in Photoshop with this Photoshop technique of clothing any image or photograph into a cold and snow-white version. You can use landscape images – this is what the tutorial shows you (this Photoshop technique does work best on scenic photos, such as trees or bushes – but you could also experiment applying snow to a portrait. Why not? It’s all explained here.

31/ Space & Stars Photoshop Tutorial

Granted, there are quite a few Photoshop brushes out there that provide you with starfields, but what if you’d like to start from scratch and create your own, personal space? That’s what this post is all about, right? So here we have an excellent Photoshop technique for you on creating a very realistic starfield with all those beautiful, colorful nebulas and stars. Ryan Foss, the tutorial author, finds a very good middle line between leaving it too empty and overdoing it. At the bottom of the tutorial, Ryan also shows possible alternatives and how to do it. See this excellent Photoshop stars technique in action for yourself right here.

Phew. So much to skim though and not even half through! In case you would like to use this post for future reference and come back later, please bookmark this page. Also, click here to subscribe in an RSS reader, and never miss a future post.

Photoshop Techniques: Textiles & Fibers

Textiles, fibers and fabrics play a decent role in every graphic designer’s skillset. If you know how to create jeans from scratch, that can save your day. Here’s how to do that one and more textile textures (what a mouthful)!

32/ Silk Textures

Look at this smooth and shiny silk texture. The color the author of this Photoshop techniqe uses for this fabric effect is pink, but you can do it any way you like. Learn Photoshop the professional way by taking a look at this tutorial right here!

33/ Satin Textures

Well, whether you’d like to interpret this texture as silk or satin is up to you. It remains a solid and very good Photoshop technique for creating such a silky fabric from scratch. Slightly different to the above, therefore a must-see. Check this fabric folds tutorial out here.

34/ Synthetic Fibers Tutorial

Those synthetic, hi-tech fabrics that clothing companies use for ski jackets or astronaut suits (just a wild guess here) – you can create this Photoshop effect with this tutorial over at Photoshop for fun. The end result is a flash, abstract wallpaper, but you can take what you want from this tutorial and don’t need to use it for that. Go there now.

35/ Jeans Texture Photoshop Tutorial

Learn Photoshop in a perfect way: create your own Diesel! Or Levi’s! Or Armani Jeans! Whatever pleases your gusto, this Photoshop technique shows you exactly how to design denim jeans textures from scratch. Go there right now.

36/ Denim Jeans Texture 2

A second Photoshop technique for creating a jeans texture (denim texture) comes from 9tutorials and uses Photoshop’s halftone filter rather than the texturizer. In addition, Truong, the author, finishes the design off with a typical jeans seam. The stunning result can be seen above and followed in detail here.

37/ Camouflage Patterns

This is a solid Photoshop technique to create your very own, custom camouflage patterns. You can color them the way you like, and make this typical army pattern as large or as small as you please. Check out this camouflage pattern Photoshop technique right over here.

38/ Seamless Pattern – Fibers & Fabrics

Learn how to create a seamless pattern in Photoshop using this technique. This tutorial teaches you the basics (well – it applies the technique to an artwork, but you’re free to design your own), and you take it from there. Take a look at this Photoshop technique right here!

Photoshop Techniques: Fluids

Be it a pool or that delicious glass of Coca-Cola with water drops on it, you’ll be prepared for these challenges with the following Photoshop techniques on creating fluids from scratch.

39/ Water Drops Photoshop Tutorial

Want to know how to make water drops in Photoshop – from scratch? Then this tutorial is for you. This method can be used for so many graphic designs; it’s an essential Photoshop technique in any way and we absolutely recommend it. Check it out for yourself right here.

40/ Create Water in Photoshop

Learn how to create water in Photoshop from scratch with this essential Photoshop technqiue. It’s quick, and it’s easy. You can make anything you like out of it for your own artwork. Check this tutorial out right here.

41/ Water Swirls

Swirls again, only this time water swirls! This Photoshop technique shows you how to design a beautiful water surface with subtle water swirls in it. You can use this technique to apply texture to a nice and sunny photograph of a house with pool, if you like. Just don’t put those swirls on the roof of the house. You can learn this Photoshop technique here.

42/ How to make Blood in Photoshop

Learn how to make blood in Photoshop with this tutorial. It will be blood running down a wall – for the real stuff, stick with the following tutorial. This one is great too, though, as it is a very useful Photoshop technique. Check it out here.

43/ Photoshop Horror Effect, very fluid indeed

Not quite along the lines of our earlier feature on Beeex.net about charming Photoshop horror effects, this Photoshop tutorial will show you how to make “blood and guts” in a very disgusting way. Not the tutorial is disgusting – it’s quite useful – but the Photoshop effect you achieve by following it. Go there here.

Photoshop Techniques: man-made Textures

Artificial / synthetic textures that the world comes up with are located here. The following Photoshop techniques show you how to create carbon fibers, asphalt, brick walls, diamond plates, glass textures and paper texture. Among others, of course.

44/ Photoshop Glass Effect

A stunning, yet very convenient Photoshop technique on creating a realistic glass effect in Adobe Photoshop. In this case, the author (using Adobe Photoshop CS2, but it is the same for every Photoshop version) takes a photograph of a room and places a glass wall inside of it. He makes use of Photoshop masks along the way. This terriffic glass effect will come in handy from time to time, believe us! Check it out here.

45/ Wrinkled Paper from Scratch

This is an excellent and in every way quite interesting Photoshop technique to create your own paper textures. No need for scanning paper or relying on third-party paper textures, you just go ahead and create your own realistic paper from scratch – following this great tutorial! And you know, it’s amazing how quick you are with this method. Go there right here.

46/ Torn Paper Texture

Follow this great Photoshop tutorial on creating torn paper from scratch, and you got yourself a solid technique that you can use for your future artwork. This torn paper tutorial has been around a while, it’s by Janee, but it is a fundamental skill and therefore we’re featuring it for you! Go check it out right here.

47/ Burnt Paper Texture

This is a Photoshop tutorial on creating and old, burnt paper texture from scratch. Again, you don’t absolutely need to follow this tutorial to the end result, but the Photoshop techniques you learn from it are solid. Check this piece out over here.

48/ Scanlines Texture Pattern – seamless

Creating a television screen effect, also called TV lines, or scanlines, can add to a good graphic design. In this handy little Photoshop tutorial, you learn how to create Photoshop patterns (link to our previous tutorial on that) and finally apply the scanlines texture pattern to a photograph. It will be a seamless pattern, of course. Go to this tutorial right here.

49/ Asphalt Textures

Learn a quick and easy way how to create asphalt textures in Photoshop. This tutorial shows you how to create a road texture with this Photoshop technique – very quickly, and with no hassle. It’s really quite easy, once you know how to do it! Check it out here.

50/ Brick Wall Tutorial

This may seem rather oldschool to you, but even though we’re in the 21st century, stone brick walls still exist and brick wall textures still might be useful. This Photoshop technique shows you how to make use of that one filter in Photoshop that you never knew why the hell it even existed. Check this tutorial out right here.

51/ Diamonds Photoshop Tutorial

Here we go bling-bling again, and you might raise that eyebrow but chill, brothers and sistas, coz dis PS Teq is fo y’all homies. You don’t need to plaster the streetz with diamondz in your designz, but you can use it for designing rockz. Not the rocks you find on mountains – we’re talkin grills & frills here people! You can use this method for any object, not just text. Now get lost.

52/ Diamond Metal Plate Texture

We had hoped you’d be coming back. Here goes our next Photoshop technique, this time for creating one of those diamond metal plate textures – the ones you walk on in subways or so. This texture tutorial is by BioRust again, that’s a great design community and quite a few of the Photoshop techniques found on this page come from them. This tutorial features two different textures, one with oval nipples (sorry, but how do you call those little things anyway?), and one with diamonds. Check it out right here.

53/ Metal Holes Texture Pattern

We’re not sure if this metal plate with holes has a dedicated name, but you might want to know how to design one at a point – so here comes this Photoshop technique. They refer to it as a floor pattern, but we still think it is a metal hole texture. Ha. Go to this tutorial right here.

54/ Carbon Fiber Tutorial

Over at Hongkiat, we found this great tutorial on creating a seamless pattern of carbon fibers. The screenshot on their site is quite dark, that may be because our monitor is color adjusted for print (we brightened the image up a bit) – but it’s a very useful Photoshop technique and you can go see it here.

55/ Carbon Fiber Photoshop Tutorial 2

Yet another Photoshop technique for creating carbon fiber patterns (seamless and tileable), this style is a variation of the tutorial above (that doesn’t mean either one came first). It’s just another way of doing it, producing different results. Go see for yourself right here!

Photoshop Techniques: Animal Textures

Creating animals in Photoshop is a category for itself. This part of our 77 Photoshop Techniques for Creating Textures features methods for designing a couple of different animal fur textures, animal skins, and leather for both Photoshop pixel graphics and Illustrator vector art.

56/ Animal Fur Photoshop Tutorial

This simple Photoshop tutorial shows you a technique of creating animal fur from scratch. You can end up adding dots or spots or other colors, but the method remains. Go there here.

57/ Tiger Fur Texture

In this Photoshop tutorial, you learn a technique to create not only animal fur, but a yellow-and-black tiger fur texture that you can apply to objects – or not. The author applies it to text in this instance. Check this one out right here.

58/ Leopard Skin Photoshop Tutorial

This Photoshop tutorial shows how quickly you can create realistic leopard skin. The very detailed result can be used for anything you like. Learn this Photoshop leopard skin technique over here.

59/ Cheetah Fur Texture

This animal fur texture reminds us about cheetahs, but you could also call it another leopard texture. We’re no experts in the field of wild animals. If you are, please clarify You can go to this Photoshop tutorial right here.

60/ Leather Texture

Create leather texture from scratch with this great tutorial. Very quickly, in four easy steps, you learn to master this useful Photoshop technique. You can go to this Photoshop leather tutorial right here.

61/ Leather Texture Illustrator Tutorial

You can also take it up with Adobe Illustrator and create black, polished leather from scratch with vectors following this Illustrator tutorial. The tutorial itself on vectortuts is not only about making this leather texture, but goes into creating a police badge with metal and leather. You might want to jump directly to Step 8 of this rambling page.

62/ Vector Leather Texture 2

Another type of leather, and another Illustrator tutorial to show you how to create some vector leather texture from scratch. This tutorial also uses Illustrator textures for the effect, but another one and slightly differently. Take a look here.

63/ Cow Texture Pattern Tutorial

Mooh goes the cow and so does the Porsche you can see in this screenshot. Learn this Photoshop cow texture pattern technique in this easy Photoshop tutorial right here – you don’t have to make the cow pattern black and white though, you could always make it a purple cow.

64/ Illustrator Hair Tutorial (What? In Animals?)

Right. Humans are no animals. But following the premise that there are not many other human textures to fill a separate category with, and with the adage errare humanum est, here comes an Illustrator hair tutorial for you vector lovers. It’s quite good and explaines the Illustrator technique of creating shiny realistic hair in Adobe Illustrator. We have talked about Illustrator hair brushes and extracting hair in Photoshop and another Photoshop hair extraction technique before – and here comes an Illustrator tutorial on making realistic vector hair in Illustrator. Go there now.

Photoshop Techniques: Classic Art

Here, we feature three techniques for creating classic art textures – two for Adobe Photoshop, one for Illustrator. You can use these Photoshop techniques perfectly for applying this kind of art texture to your artwork. Of course, you know of all the Photoshop filters – we know you know – but did you know how to use them correctly?

65/ Oil Painting Photoshop Technique

We don’t want to repeat ourselves, but just in case you think you already know the Photoshop oil painting filter, we’d like to ask if you are interested in learning how to enhance its effect with a few other Photoshop techniques. If so, please follow along.

66/ Watercolor Photoshop Technique

Same goes for the built-in watercolor Photoshop filter – there is a simple trick how you can enhance the effect and come up with a really good watercolor painting. Take a look at this Photoshop technique right here.

67/ Pop Art Illustrator Technique

Pop Art vectors in Illustrator? Easy – use halftones, right? (In fact, if you scroll down on the page, you’ll find quite a few retro halftone effects for both Photoshop and Illustrator.) Well, in this case: no. Use custom patterns instead. Learn how to create this kind of vector “Pop Art pattern” and apply it to an image you traced in Illustrator (link to previous post on Beeex.net). This Illustrator tutorial shows you how to do that in a Roy Lichtenstein style, is from vectortuts and you can find it here.

Almost done with the list! Before we finish this off with the two remaining categories, Light/Color textures and Retro textures: Have you subscribed to our feed yet?

Ok!

Photoshop Techniques: Textures with Light and Color

The following Photoshop techniques are excellent examples of working with color. The first two do that explicitly and you’ll end up with some very colorful textures of your own, that you can use to enhance a certain type of your artwork. The third Photoshop technique is different, also very beautiful, and maybe you can find a place to use it with.

68/ Abstract Color Photoshop Tutorial

A simple and fast, yet excellent Photoshop tutorial on creating colored lines. Giacomo Coppola from Italy shows you how to create this stunning effect. These color lines are perfect if you want to complete a design that can live with this kind of texture. Go see this nice goodie right here.

69/ Eclipse/Light Curtain Photoshop Effect

Making use of this Photoshop effect can create stunning light effects that you can use as subtle textures, or as prominent elements. Fabio Sasso from Abduzeedo shows you how to do it – a very cool tutorial indeed. You can choose to take this Photoshop technique from start until step 8 (in which case you end up with what we captured in this screenshot), or you can follow along with the tutorial and apply one of the free textures from our previous post to the effect. Go check this nice tutorial out here.

70/ Dust & Spray Effect

This beautiful Photoshop effect by David Leggett uses a very cool technique and places an abstract element in an actually unrelated environment. Take a look at this dust right here.

Photoshop Techniques: Retro Textures

After the popularity of the retro backgrounds in our previous post, this category contains retro Photoshop technqiues such as halftones, more swirls and general “aging effects” that can be used to create an old-style photograph. Hence the title “retro”.

71/ Photoshop Halftone Effect

Here is a great (and long) tutorial on transforming an image of a girl with a ghettoblaster into an image of a girl with a ghettoblaster and halftones. And some 3D text on top. And some floating X’s on top, which are also 3D. But but, we don’t need all that, we just want the excellent part where the author explains how to create halftone effects with this Photoshop technique. Go there now.

72/ Illustrator Halftone Background Tutorial

Halftones are nice. Not always so easy to master (if you don’t know how to do it) – but nice. Learn how to create a halftone background in Adobe Illustrator. You’ll be working with vectors, naturally. This is the counterpart of the above tutorial for the vector art version of Adobe Creative Suite. You can learn this Illustrator technique right here.

73/ Vector Halftones Video Tutorial

This Illustrator video tutorial shows you how to create vector halftones that are slightly different from the above technique. You can view this vector tutorial right here.

74/ Retro Halftone Comic Style

This Photoshop technique takes an original photograph and uses effects to create a retro halftone effect that pretty much resembles a very popular comic style. It’s very handy to know how to use this effect, so go to this tutorial here.

75/ Retro Swirls

Swirls again! This time, they look like ice cream backgrounds and you can apply this Photoshop technique perfectly to create a retro texture style. It’s really about the technique, not so much about the choice of colors used in this tutorial… Think very dark, shady background with dark green retro swirls set to Multiply or Overlay as a texture. It’s really what you make of it. Check this tutorial out here.

76/ Photoshop Grain & Dust Retro Effects

Here is a great tutorial on applying Photoshop grain effects to an artwork. The scratches you see are of course created from scratch (cheap pun – sorry) following this Photoshop technique. Therefore, this tutorial belongs in the retro category and most certainly in this list. Go there now.

77/ Photoshop Grain Technique 2

A very quick and easy Photoshop technique on applying grain to your photographs or other kind of artwork. Go see it here.

SPECIAL BONUS/ MySpace Glitter Backgrounds

Oh no. Not again. But you know, in fact, actually – - well, see if you can find any use for glitter backgrounds for yourself. You don’t even have to have a Myspace page. In fact, chances are high that if you are into graphic design a bit, you really don’t have one. If you are a designer and still on Myspace, then we’re sure that your profile page isn’t like all the others. See how you can make glitter backgrounds right here.

Here we go! We gave our best to make this list complete and to offer you a good and hopefully useful collection of 77 Essential Photoshop Techniques for creating photo-realistic Textures. If you know a killer resource we forgot, please add it in the comments. We always appreciate your input and feedback!

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~Beeex Happy Team

What you get is 6 large Adobe Photoshop brushes for the famous design software. The brushes are up to 2048 pixels in size, so for any of you using a version other than Photoshop CS3 (CS2 also still works), you can ask the Vibr8 Bros. to scale them down or release the PNG version on their site. That’s because for versions before CS2, the maximum Photoshop brush size is 999 pixels (or even below that for earlier versions). For CS2+ users though, these brushes are perfect! You can jump to the free download below.

These are the free Photoshop brushes included in the 4.3 MB download…

…and you can go download the free high res Photoshop brushes right here. Enjoy!

In the tutorial, the talented Brazilian graphic designer Fabio Sasso explains how to create the smoke effect, starting with a blank canvas. We graded the tutorial as demi-skilled, because you should know a few basics before following it. For instance, in step 3, Fabio uses the ‘liquify filter’ without any thorough explanation. You do have a screenshot though, where you can see the settings. So if you know a few basics, this free Photoshop tutorial is for you.

But no worries. If you get stuck somewhere along the way, you can always look the techniques up elsewhere. There are many high qualitiy tutorials for Photoshop on the Internet. Also, make sure to check out all the tutorials on Beeex.net (click on “Photoshop Tutorials” in the sidebar to the right) – you may find something interesting there as well.

Here is another screenshot from the site:

You can jump to this great Photoshop tutorial right here. Create your own smoke!

You can use these beautiful, free Photoshop brushes with versions CS2 and CS3. For those of you who have an older version of Adobe Photoshop – you can still check them out, because some of the brushes are 999px large. As you might know, larger brushes than that are only supported from Adobe Photoshop CS2.

The Photoshop brushes come as .ABR files, which you have to place in the Presets/Brushes folder on your hard drive. Here is a more detailed installation guide for Photoshop brushes on Beeex.net.

So let’s cut to the chase. This is what you get:

…and you can download these Photoshop brushes right here. Enjoy!

This free online generator is a great, easy tool for rasterizing images quickly – without using Photoshop or Illustrator. Adobe Photoshop has a similar effect, and more options for sure (not to speak of plugins for rasterizing images), but this cool website does it all in a few easy steps and generates a PDF for you to download in less than a minute!

After uploading a picture or specifying an image URL, you can crop the image, resize it, and choose the rasterization method. Do you prefer small black dots or larger, colored dots? It’s all in your hands!

Remember, this free, web-based tool doesn’t replace any tools you might have, or even Photoshop. Instead, it’s a quick and easy way of rasterizing images without a lot of work. The results, while not the most optimal, are quite good indeed.

This is what your raster image result could look like:

You can jump to the Rasterbator here. Have fun rasterizing!

This is a good tutorial for Photoshop users who know their way around a bit already. You don’t have to be an expert in Photoshop, but you should know some of the basics before you try this tutorial out.

This tutorial takes you from a rather normal image (a picture of an eye; you’ll find all the links to the source files in the tutorial) to implementing more pictures, like a rock wall and a butterfly, to merging them into the final version you see below.

The reason we only recommend this tutorial to somewhat experienced Photoshop users is that while every step is explained quite well, the author uses language like “…lighten the top of your rock with the dodge tool and darken the bottom with the burn tool.”

If you have no idea what he’s talking about, you might want to try some easier tutorials first. If you’re familiar with these tools, and you don’t need them explained, this tutorial is for you!

This is the final image you get after completing this tutorial:

…and here’s the link to this tutorial. Enjoy and beeex happpy!

This is another tutorial about creating patterns in Photoshop. It includes a download of the pattern kit. It is the last part of this series, the other parts are:

The differences between brushes and patterns in Photoshop,
Photoshop Brushes: install and create,
Photoshop Patterns: install, create #1 and #2.

How to create Photoshop Patterns #2

This simple tutorial shows you how easy it is to play around with Photoshop patterns. In our previous post about creating Photoshop patterns, we featured two tutorials on creating stripes and grids in Photoshop. Here, you’ll find out how to vary your settings to get thicker or thinner stripes, and what to pay attention to when you do this.

In case you prefer easy street, you can also download the pattern kit and use it directly with Photoshop!

You can go to this tutorial here! The download link with the .pat file is right below the tutorial.

In this post, we have a great tutorial for you about how to create your own brushes in Photoshop. It is a part of a series, the other parts are:

The differences between brushes and patterns in Photoshop,
Photoshop Brushes: install and create,
Photoshop Patterns: install, create #1 and #2.

How to create your own Photoshop brushes

In this part, we cover the basics of creating your own, custom Photoshop brushes from a pre-existing photograph or image. The tutorial by Bittbox covery not only the basics, but also gets into details about using the right settings and parameters, and also which common mistakes to avoid.

This tutorial is very well written detailed and enough to give you the knowledge you need to make your own brushes. Take a look at all of the possibilities you’ve got with custom brushes!

You can view this tutorial here. You can also find the other parts of this series on Photoshop brushes and patterns at the top of this post. Enjoy!

Photoshop Model Tutorial

This is what you get in this Photoshop tutorial. Learn how to use the airbrush in Adobe Photoshop to remove skin irritations, to brighten up the eyes and to get stunning, beautiful results in the end. It’s not too hard at all. The Photoshop tutorial is by Mizuno and it’s one of our favorites, as it teaches essential skills for Photoshop users. Try it out yourself!

BEFORE: This is the sexy girl you’re going to retouch in this Photoshop tutorial.

AFTER: And this is the direct comparison of the before and after. The girl has been turned into a glamour model, ready for top shelf at your local magazine store. All with this Photoshop tutorial:

Since we last posted this Photoshop model tutorial here on Beeex.net, the site with the tutorial has removed the page for some reason. But we did some digging and found it on another site. So what you get here is a large screenshot of this Photoshop tutorial.

The JPG is 1.9 MB large. You can either click on the link and view the screenshot online, or right-click and download it.

View or download this Photoshop Model Tutorial

Disclaimer and Copyright Notice: We are not the copyright holders of this tutorial. Unfortunately, we were not able to identify the owner, or we would have linked to the original source. If you are the owner of this tutorial and object to this feature on our site, or wish to identify yourself for proper crediting, please notify us immediately. Thank you.

In this post, we cover the basics about installing patterns in Photoshop. It is a part of a series, the other parts are:

The differences between brushes and patterns in Photoshop,
Photoshop Brushes: install and create,
Photoshop Patterns: install, create #1 and #2.

This is the 4th post in the series. The next two posts will be pusblished over the next 2 days. To stay tuned about new posts, subscribe to our RSS Feed.

How to install patterns in Photoshop

A pattern is a style you can apply to content. It’s usually a small image that can be tiled seamlessly to create a pattern. Once you’ve downloaded a pattern, you will find it on your hard drive in your specified download folder. What’s next?

If your new pattern file is zipped, you have to unzip it first. You then have a .pat file that looks something like this. Now, you have to install it in Photoshop in order to use it on your artwork.

1. Navigate to your Photoshop/Presets/Patterns folder and copy the .pat file to that folder.
2. In Photoshop,
   • double click on the layer you want to apply the pattern to, or
   • activate the ‘Pattern’ checkbox in your Brushes palette (Window/Brushes), if you want to apply the pattern to a brush
3. Click on the dropdown bar in the small pattern preview box, click on the arrow to the upper right, and select ‘Load Pattern’
4. Find the .pat file you just copied to the Patterns folder in step 1, and hit ‘open’.
5. Select ‘Add’ from the popup box to add your new patterns to the existing ones in your palette.

That’s it! Your new pattern is now loaded and ready to use. You may have to scroll down in the pattern list to find your new brushes, as they have been added to the existing ones. The next time you open Photoshop, the new patterns will be in the pattern library already.

Beeex happy!