Interweaving Textured Image in Photoshop CS6

Hey, everyone! Howard Pinsky here with a 'Let's make it easier" Photoshop
tutorial. One of my viewers sent me a link to an 'Interweaving' Photoshop tutorial, which
they were having some difficulty completing.
Taking a look at the tutorial, it's very tedious.
In step 8 and 12, each horizontal and vertical row need to be individually selected with
the Marquee Tool. So I thought to myself, there HAS to be an easier and shorter way
to achieve this effect. And that's when I remembered Photoshop CS6's new Scripted Patterns
feature. Let me show you how this effect can be achieved in a much shorter amount of time.\
Before we even touch our image, we need to
create the pattern that Photoshop will use to create this effect. For the pattern's document,
the size will be set to 50 by 20 pixels. We only need to create one of the weaves. If
you want larger or smaller weaves, you can always create a smaller or larger document,
based on the design we're about to create.
When the document has been created, we're going to head straight into our Layer Styles
to add a gradient and a slight highlight at the top.
For the Gradient Overlay, start by setting
the Angle at 0 degrees and set the Style to Reflected, Now, hop into the Gradient Editor
to define our colors. The color on the right will act as the shadow that appears underneath,
as the design is interweaving. It's going to be a dark grey.
Now the color on the left, will be a lighter
grey. cbcccb. These two colors will work well when we go to blend our pattern with the image
in the background.
Finally, let's add an Inner Shadow, which will act as a highlight, to give our pattern
a bit of depth. The Blend Mode will be changed to Overlay, the color to white, and the Opacity
to around 40%.
Down below, set the Angle at 90 degrees, the Distance at 2 pixels, and the size at 0. Perfect.
That'll go it for the Layer Styles. Our pattern is complete!
Now to save this pattern, you can use the
Define Pattern option under the Edit menu. This will allow you to save the pattern which
you'll be able to access in Photoshop's Pattern Pickers.
So now that the pattern has been saved, let's
hop back over to our image. This image is from Shutterstock.com, but of course, you
can use your own images if you wish.
To keep this design non-destructive, we're going to apply this pattern onto a new Layer.
You can quickly create a new layer by pressing the New Layer icon at the bottom of your Layers
panel or with your Command+Option+Shift + N shortcut on the Mac, Ctrl+Alt+Shift+N shortcut
on Windows.
Once the layer has been created, we can use the new Scripted Patterns feature. This can
be found in Photoshop's Fill window, which is located under the Edit menu. When the window
is visible, start by choosing Pattern for the Contents, and then open up the Pattern
Picker right below. If you saved your pattern correctly, it should be at the very bottom
of the picker.
Once it's been chosen, at the bottom of the Fill window, you'll find the Scripted Patterns
option. Again, this is only available in Photoshop CS6. Here, you'll want to choose the Cross
Weave preset, and when you press OK, Photoshop will generate an interweaving effect using
the pattern we created a few moments ago.
You may notice that a bit of color has been introduced on the pattern. It won't appear
much when we blend it, but if you want to quickly get ride of it, Command/Ctrl+Shift+U
will desaturate the layer.
Now, to blend the pattern with the image, you can use a variety of Blending Mode, which
will give you different results. Personally, the Multiply Blend Mode gave me a pretty decent
result for this image, a bit dark, but we'll deal with that in a moment. Your images may
require some experimentation with the other Modes, such as Overlay or Soft Light.
To brighten up the pattern a touch, I'm going
to add a Levels Adjustment Layer, and I want to make sure to clip it so that it only affects
the pattern texture, and not the image behind it. Now I can increase the midtones and highlights
to brighten up the pattern a touch.
Finally, the last step you may want to take, is to fill in the holes behind the pattern.
You can either apply a Drop Shadow to the pattern's layer, if you want the background
image to remain visible, or you can apply a black stroke to completey fill in the holes.
Either way, you'll be left with a pretty neat looking interweaving effect, created with
a simple pattern, and Photoshop CS6's new Scripted Patterns feature.
I hope you all enjoyed it. If you did, please
like this video, share it with your friends, and check out my other tutorials at IceflowStudios.com.
Take care!