Don't let a rainy day dampen your creativity. Mark Galer shows you how to add rich background textures to your images and recreate the look of old-school cross-processed film.
This project uses two paper textures. The first is simply the back of an old certificate. The second was created by scrunching up a piece of photocopy paper and attacking it with a dishwashing sponge loaded with a dissolved Oxo cube. The straight edges were torn and the image scanned. The options for textures are nearly endless and if you can’t be bothered creating your own there are plenty of free options online at sites like deviantART.com. Either way, playing around with textures is a great way to expand your creative horizons.
OPEN START IMAGES
Download the three original image files at www.australianphotography.com (go to the ‘how to’ tab and click ‘tutorial images’ from the drop-down menu). Open them in Photoshop Elements. Drag the ‘Portrait-start’ layer thumbnail from the layers panel (or the thumbnail from the project bin – ‘Window > Project Bin’) onto the ‘Paper 1’ image. (Hold the ‘Shift’ key as you drag to align the layers.) Now drag the ‘Paper 2’ thumbnail onto the ‘Paper 1’ image to create a file with three layers. The portrait image should sit between the two paper layers...
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