Brushstroke texture/pattern

[Guest]

It's fun and easy to make patterns to simulate brushstrokes for photo art paintings. As I make them, I will add them to this page and hope others will also. (Further down this page, under Van Gogh Patterns, I explain one way to create these.)

First, here is an embossed texture/pattern I made a while back...supposed to make pics look like oil paintings. Use it in different blend modes for different effects. Modes that work well include color burn, overlay, soft light, vivid light and others, depending on the picture and effect desired.

If you enlarge it, be sure to sharpen it a lot at about 0.5 or less. It's a good idea also to sharpen the final "oil painting" to make the strokes look fine with glistening edges, as in a real painting. It responds well also to render-lighting embossing for a thicker looking paint. Here are two pics I used it on, mini-challenges 70 and 71:

http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/attachment.php?s=&postid=41097

http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/attachment.php?s=&postid=41011

To use it, open it, select it, and go to "edit>define pattern" and add it to your pattern list. To apply it, use a pattern adjustment layer. Another way to use it is to just copy it directly to make a new layer in your picture, then set blend mode to overlay or soft light.

Phyllis

[DannyRaphael]

Excellent... Look forward to trying this.

thx much ~Danny~

[angue]

Thank you Phyllis. Would you happen to know if I can choose where to save the pattern. I'm afraid that if and when I need to reinstall the program, I may not be able to use this pattern.

Tony

[Guest]

Originally posted by angue
Thank you Phyllis. Would you happen to know if I can choose where to save the pattern. I'm afraid that if and when I need to reinstall the program, I may not be able to use this pattern.

Tony

I have to reinstall my Photoshop also since it keeps losing the custom keystrokes I made and is showing color profiles wrong...I HOPE the problem is in the program, not somewhere in the computer itself, though I've run disk warrior and norton and virus programs and have found nothing else wrong. I am putting off the reinstall, however, since I know I'll have to dig out all the special items I've added and save them.

I plan to just keep it all in a new folder labeled "photoshop extras" and then put them all back where they belong, a few at a time, just in case my problems with Photoshop are the result of a bad action or filter I tried. I also keep a folder with "extra textures" that I have made or found here and there that I might find a specific need for in the future, but I don't load them into Photoshop until I decide to use them. A lot of "background tiles" are very good to use as textures/patterns, I have found, and I have a huge collection of those since at one time I was addicted to making background patterns.

I have found that putting these into PS's texture collection for the texturizer filter is not as good as saving them in patterns, since in textures they often get rectangular lines between them unless you use them at exactly 100%. And, yes, this is true even of the ones that tile perfectly. But saving them as patterns doesn't cause this problem, for some reason, and they are just as easy to use that way.

Phyllis

[Schwartzie]

I had been wondering about that lines in textures and do the same thing with saving them in patterns. Sometimes i use the texture on a blending layer and just clone out the line.

If I have to reinstall photoshop I first copy all my filters and extra installed things somewhere else and then just stick they back. That way everything works with the registry.

[jerry]

Phyllis
Thanks for the texture and info regarding texture vs. pattern..Very helpful.

Jerry

[Guest]

Van Gogh Brushstroke Patterns

Here are two new textures/patterns to simulate Van Gogh strokes, though possibly not quite as curly as some of his. One is sharp and harsh, and the other is soft and unsharpened. Both are embossed and are best used as patterns blended over the picture in overlay or soft light mode, though linear burn mode works well to get a dark moody look.

These are really both the same pattern, but one has been sharpened and one not. To use one of them, open it, select it, and go to "edit>define pattern" and add it to your pattern list. To apply it, use a pattern adjustment layer then set size, blend mode, and opacity to taste. Another way to use it is to just copy it directly to make a new layer in your picture--I made them 700 pixels wide on purpose since that is the size I usually work with, and by making a separate layer of it, you can color it and change its contrast etc. to get different results if you feel like experimenting.

First, here is the Van Gogh Soft pattern applied to mini challenge #71. The pattern itself will follow.

Phyllis

[Guest]

And here is the Van Gogh Soft pattern.

Oh, and I should mention that these pictures have had other things done to them other than applying the pattern, since I was working on mini-challenge #71 when I decided to do this. You will most likely want to do all your other tweaking first then apply the pattern adjustment layer last...at least that's how I do it.

Phyllis

[Guest]

Here is the same picture treated with the Van Gogh Sharp pattern instead. I reduced its size to about 80-90% in the pattern adjustment layer, so that is why it looks smaller/tighter than the first one. Actually, you could make two adjustment layers with one of each in different sizes to get a different look if you like.

Phyllis

[Guest]

And here is the Van Gogh Sharp pattern.

You will notice that these texture patterns are larger than the one I started this thread with...size of strokes of course depends on the size of your painting, the subject matter, and the style you seek to imitate.

Phyllis

[Guest]

Colored brushstrokes

Last of all, I use both of these patterns on this entry in mini-challenge #71:

http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/attachment.php?s=&postid=41161

That pic had a multi-colored version of the non-embossed pattern applied first, which I merged into the picture before applying the embossed layers to add the paint texture.

These colored patterns were the originals from which I made the embossed ones (they were combined with different opacities into one pattern). I made them simply by brushing every which way on a picture with a smudge tool using an appropriate brush type/size. This is a good way to make your own brushstroke patterns. After you get the strokes, you can increase contrast, desaturate, etc. to get down to bare black lines if you like, and/or you can emboss the pattern if you like. Lots of possibilities. Try it--it's fun!

Anyway, here are the two patterns I started with.

Phyllis

[Guest]

A "found" texture

Chuck wrote: The difference between using Painter Classic auto Van Gogh and your approach is Painter Classic is a two step process that computes a direction for the strokes as a function of the image content and then adds the brush strokes on the second pass.

Yes, that's true. It's been a while since I used Painter and I forget...can you add impasto to the Van Gogh brush style? That would give it the look that embossing the texture does in PS, plus the benefit of directing strokes. If you do that will you still have the colors showing up? I like the colors in the swirls in your first pic!

I see what you mean about the vertical lines on the rose...guess you can just clone that out though...not a lot to fix. The look is really great! And the rose itself is wonderful. Here it is winter in Illinois and I have no flowers to photograph, and I'm jealous.
---------

Here is another texture, found hiding in PS7 preset folder in the textures folder there (not in the main textures folder).* The name is "oilsshort.psd" and it is colored red...not the most useful color! But the strokes are great! I opened it and softened the color to gold and used it in mini-challenge #71:

http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/attachment.php?s=&postid=41248

I also made a b/w version which gives nice results also, but I rather like the way the gold color tones down the too-blue sky on the barn pic while warming up the reds and greens. I set the blend mode to overlay and reduced opacity a bit.

Here are both of the textures to download. Save one or both as separate PSD files and place them in presets>textures folder, and/or edit>define pattern to put them in your pattern collection. First is the gold one.

*I don't know if it came with Photoshop or if I made it a few years ago for some purpose and forgot about it...if you have it too, please let me know...thanks.

Phyllis

[Guest]

And here is the neutral gray version of the same brush texture. Important: if you plan to put these into Photoshop's presets>textures folder to access later, be sure to save it as a PSD file first.

Phyllis

[DannyRaphael]

These textures / patterns really make a difference. Seeing the examples along with them clearly illustrates the effect. I especially liked the "oil" based textures.

Well done. (No, I'm not ordering a steak! )