Tutorial: Non-Desctructive Texture Workflow  
   

Introduction:
This tutorial is intended to explore a few different ways of creating natural looking color maps from multiple texture reference photos. The editing process almost completely non-destructive, focusing on isolated edits, and ease of editability. Tools that will be used include different kinds of masks, useful blend modes, adjustment layers and filters.
  The final image will be of a brick wall covered in cracked and crumbling concrete and worn out paint. Click the thumbnail to see an example of the final image.


Key:

Hotkey
Layer Name
Link
Tool, Command or Action

Resources:
For this tutorial I chose a selection of textures from Mayang's Free Texture Website, and CGTextures.com. I chose these textures because each focued on a single material or effect that I wanted to combine into my own creation. I didn't want too many details whithin each source that would get in the way of what i wanted to create.
- I will also be referencing the use of some actions that I use all of the time. These are also available as a download from my download section.

Right Click and Save Target As:
Texture Files Download

Process:

1.) Canvas Priming: Let's begin by creating a new 512x512 blank canvas. I like to author my texture source at or one size above desired output size. I do this because I find that i have more control over the final output image, by sharpening my content and removing downsampling from the equation.
- Now let's open up the following files: concreteBare.jpg and concreteGrunge.jpg. We will be combing these to create our new base concrete texture.
- With concreteBard.jpg set as the active selection, press ctrl+a to select the entire canvas, then ctrl+c to copy it to the clipboard. Paste it into the new blank canvas. Do the same with concreteGrunge.jpg, and close both source files.
- Name the layers respectively: conBare and conGrunge. Shift select both layers, and press ctrl+t to transform them both. Hold down the shift+alt keys while dragging the corner transform handle to uniformly scale the images from their centers. Click and drag inside of the transform boundary to move the layers around inside of the canvas. Scale and move the layers until they are only slightly taller than canvas' vertical limit, and right side justified.
- Recover some of the sharpness lost by the downsampling by running Filter>Sharpen>SmartSharpen on both of the images. Use the following settings: Amount = 100%, Radius = 0.3 pixels.
- Duplicate the conBare layer ( ctrl+j ) and name the copy conBareTop. Move the layer to right so that it becomes left side justified and is offset from the other two.


2.) Mixing Concrete: ConGrunge is going to used to create a clipping mask to create a layered concrete look. With ConGrunge selected, press shift+ctrl+u to desaturate the layer. Press ctrl+l to adjust levels and match the settings in the following image.
- Duplicate conGrunge and name the new layer conGrungeMask.With the layer selected go to Select>ColorRange, and use the eyedropper to select a pure white pixel inside the image and crank the fuzziness up to 200. Click OK.
- With the selection loaded, switch to the eraser ( e key ) and erase the entire selected area. Move the conGrungeMask layer underneath the conBareTop layer, press and hold the alt key, and then left click between the two layers when the clipping mask icon appears ( two ellipses and an arrow ). A layer with a clipping mask assigned to it will reveal the layer below through the mask's transparent pixels.
- Delete the original conGrunge Layer.


- Duplicate the conGrungeMask layer, and rename it to conGrungeOverlay. Place the new layer above conBareTop, and set it's blend mode to overlay. Press ctrl+u to bring up the hue/saturation adjustment dialog box, and set the lightness value to +50%. The layer should practically disappear.
- Double click on the overlay layer to add some layer styles and give the concrete some more depth.
- Add a Bevel and Emboss style. Set the size to 0, the highlight mode opacity to 50%, and the shadow mode opacity to 50%.
- Add a Drop Shadow style. Set it's blend mode to overlay, opacity to 25%, distance to 0, and size to 10.
- Add an Inner Glow style. Set it's opacity to 50%, color to white, and size to 2.
- Shift select all of the layers and press ctrl+g to group them together. Name the group con_GRP.


3.) Dirt and Paint: Open up concreteDirty.jpg and paste it into your canvas. Uniformly scale that layer until it's vertical area is slightly larger than the height of the canvas. Set the layer's blend mode to soft light to give some value and color temperature shifts to the overall image. Rename the layer stains.
- Duplicate the stains layer, rename it to paint. With the paint layer selected assign a layer mask through Layer>Add Layer Mask>Reveal All.
- Make sure to have the layer mask selected and set the foreground and background colors to white and black. Run Filter>Render>Clouds. You might have run this filter a couple times to get a mask that you like.
- Set the paint layer's blend mode to exclusion, and set it's opacity to 60%.
- To complete the effect for now, create a Photo Filter from the create new fill or adjustment layer from the bottom of the layers palette. Choose Cooling Filter (82) and click OK. Set the photo filter layer's opacity to 35%.
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