First appeared on March 24, 2001
Last update on Saturday, November 17, 2001
Create fine foliage that can be used as a bush or tree texture.
First create a new document by pressing Ctrl+N. I set the dimensions 200 by 150 pixels, and the contents transparent for this tutorial, but make the document as big as possible in dimensions for best results.
Set the foreground color to green. You can use the swatches palette (Window > Show Swatches) for quick color picking. Then press Shift+F5, and click OK to fill the workspace with the foreground color.
Apply the Grain filter (Filter > Texture > Grain) with the following settings:
Intensity: 60
Contrast: 80
Grain Type: Clumped
The image looks like blurred leaves now, so we will sharpen it a bit with the Unsharpen Mask filter (Filter > Sharpen > Unsharpen Mask):
Amount: 75%
Radius: 5.0
Threshold: 0
Hmmm, it looks much better, but it still looks like hand-drawn. We will give a more realistic look in the next two steps.
Click on the channels tab to open up the Channels palette and create a new channel by clicking on the third icon () found at the bottom of the Channels palette. A new channel named as Alpha 1 will be created. Apply the Add Noise filter (Filter > Noise > Add Noise) with the following settings:
We will use this channel as a texture channel for the next step.
First click on the Layers tab to return to the layers palette, and click on Layer 1 to activate it. Select Filter > Render > Lighting Effects. Change the light type to directional, and the texture channel to Alpha 1. Set the lighting angle like the one shown in the figure below:
Congratulations! You now have a realistic foliage texture. If it's too dark for your needs you can change the angle of the light to make it brighter.
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