15 Aug 2012

Smoothing out textures . . .

On the face of it this seems an odd thing to want to do but when I mentioned this tip on my Facebook page Teresa Pople Photography somebody asked me if I could give instructions . . .so this is for you Kathy and anyone else who may be interested.

This is the original shot on which I did the preliminary work. I always shoot in Raw so I made the exposure adjustments I wanted to, sharpened the areas of the photo I wanted to enhance and then started to apply the texture.

I find it's quite hit and miss deciding which texture to use, sometimes a certain colour is what I want and I go with that but at other times I just experiment and may open 4 or 5 different textures before I get something I can work with.

I never feel that I have to complete a layer before moving on to the next one and  usually only do a bit of work on the first layer before I duplicate the texture and try a different blend mode, I like to quickly build the image before refining it. Each layer can be worked on as and when you want and  you can jump around the different layers masking and  revealing a little here and a little there . . .I find it difficult if not almost impossible to finish with one layer before I start another.

Here's the layers panel for this image


So . .. I reached a stage where I wanted to intensify the colour but not intensify the texture . . .and this is one of the snags with using multiple layers of texture . . .it can become too texturised.
 I found the effect I wanted which was linear burn blend mode at 45% and then blurred the texture using the gaussian blur filter. This gave me what I was looking for.
To do this simply click on the particular layer of texture you want to blur, select filter . .gaussian blur and decide how much of a blur you want . . .check the preview button and click ok. If you decide you then don't like it just undo. It's that simple and can produce some beautifully creamy effects.

I hope this was helpful . .if anyone wants any further info just let me know.

Love xx :-)



11 comments:

  1. Thank you for sharing your knowledge, Teresa. Always admire your work!

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    1. Thank you Debbie . . .I'm so pleased you enjoy my work . . .x

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  2. Thank you Teresa, I will give this a go and let you know how I made out!! Thank you for taking the time to do this instructional work!!

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  3. It is so nice to see you posting again! I enjoy when you take the time to show us how you create such beautiful photos using textures...thanks : )

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    1. Thanks so much Cathy . . .it's good to be back :-)

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  4. You have created such a lovely soft image... I love it.
    Thank you for the tip, I never would have thought about using the blurring effect.

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  5. I followed you here from flickr (and also to FB!) Thanks for this tutorial. Love the finished image and have never managed to get this look, though often I've often tried!

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  6. Your texture work here is lovely ~ thank you for showing us how you did it!

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  7. Thank you for this tip! I just tried it and love the effect.

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  8. Just found you through your interview on French Kiss Textures. You do beautiful work. Thanks for this tip on blurring the texture. Can't wait to try it. Love the effect.

    http://kimhojnackiphotography.blogspot.com/

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I really appreciate your comments . . . thank you