In the previous concrete tutorial, you learned how to create a porous, cracked, weathered slab of concrete. Now we're going to learn a few special tricks to spice things up on our palette of plaster. I'll show you how to create scratches, indentations, stains, scortch marks, and paint. So if you're in the mood for some destruction, then follow me!

    You're going to need the concrete texture that you created from the previous concrete tutorial for certain things to look right from the examples. However, it is also the purpose of this tutorials that you understand how to apply what you've learned to other textures and materials besides concrete. Most of what you'll get here is applicable to all sorts of metal and stone textures. The methods to achieving these effects on different materials is practically identical, so hopefully this lesson will be valuable to you later on.

 Creating Scratches

    You may be surprised to see how easy this trick is. All you need is the Dodge tool and the Sharpen brush. Start by selecting the Dodge tool from the toolbar or by pressing the "O" key, and set the brush size to anything lower than 5 (I'd suggest 3). Make sure that your range is set to "Midtones", and your exposure is about 50%. Now, begin to actually scratch the desired area by drawing a line. You may want to retrace your line several times to get the desired strength of the scratch. Here you can see several scratches that I have made as an example. Notice how some of the scratches are used to compliment the larger cracks in the plaster.

    Now we are ready to touch up these cracks and add a degree of granularity to show the forces under which these cracks were created. Select your Sharpen tool from the tool bar or press the "R" key, and set the brush size to about equal of your Dodge tool. Also, set the exposure to about 25%, and normal filtering if that option is available to you (Photoshop 7). Now lightly trace over the scratch lines you made and see how the underlying grit becomes brighter and more agitated. Check out the results.

    You can also make larger scratches with larger brushes, or even experiment with different brush styles. However, if you plan on using this texture as a tiled surface, I recommend making as few "obvious" scratches as possible. Otherwise it will be very easy for the eye to discern that the texture is being tiled.

 Creating Indentations

    If you want your slab of crete to appear as if it was molded into shape, or simply want to put a hole in it, then the next few steps are for you. As an example, I'm going to make a concave indentation that will appear to be formed from a structural mold. This trick is a little more "art" and less "science", as it requires you to "eyeball" things a bit. You may end up wanting to scrapyour design and start over again several times before your get it the way you want, which is why practice is ever more important.

    Start by selecting the "Polygonal Lasso" tool from the toolbar, and change the feather value to 2. Now we're going to set up some guides. This is not only a more accurate way of ensuring your design is correct, it's also just a good habit to get into when you start making your won designs. Go to View > New Guide... and set the following verticle guides: 64, 128, 168, 344, 384, 448, and horizontal guides at 64, 128, 384, and 448. Your guides should look something like this.

    Now that we have our guides set, we'll start by making the under-side of the concave shape. This side should be darker than the rest of the surrounding concrete because it is in shadow. Use the "Polygonal Lasso" and make a selection similar to the one shown here. Now use the "Burn" tool to darken the selected area. Try usinga brush size of about 100, and make sure your range is in the "Midtones" and exposure set to about 20%. When you are finished, you can start on the over-side... which should be brighter since it is facing skyward or towards a light source. Using the Polygonal Lasso and the Dodge tool, create the lighter face of the concave geometry as depicted here.

    Next we'll tackle the sides of the formation. Because the sides of the concave shape lean inward from the bottom to the top, they are facing away from the implied source of light and therefore should be shaded. However, because of their depth and angle, they should not be shaded as darkly as the top under-side of the concave geometry. Use the Polygonal Lasso to create one side of the concave, then hold the SHIFT key while creating the opposite side, completing the concave. Next, go to Image > Adjust > Brightness / Contrast and lower the brightness to a value lower than the normal concrete, but lighter than the top under-side of the concave. I find that a brightness value of -8 looks fairly decent.

    Finally, we'll chisel out the edges of the concave to make them more defined. Make sure everything is de-selected, and select the Dodge tool. Reduce the brush size to a 3 or 5, and the exposure to about 25%. Now begin to lightly trace the outsides of the concave with the Dodge tool, and enhance some of the scratches if necessary. Afterward, switch over to the Burn tool and (using the same values as the Dodge tool) repeat the process on the insides of the concave, and also trace the corners of the concave's inner walls. Here is the end result, notice how I altered some of the scratches to appear skewed on the inner walls of the concave by drawing the scratches on the outside at different angles.

    You can see more details of this procedure in part 2 of "Creating Steel Textures", but the basics are all here. I suggest trying this technique on a more complicated pattern, just to see how detailed you can make it.

 Creating Stains and Paint

    Adding details such as paint or stains can really add character to your project as a whole. While stains purely give the impression that a surface has been long since weathered and worn, paint - depending upon it's severity - can give the illusion of something new or something very old. Paint, depending on how thick it is (spray can or paint bucket) will vary from leaving discolored marks on your material to a completely different material coating. We'll get to that in a second, fist we'll learn about stains.

    Stains are relatively easy to create, depending on the substance. Liquids like water and oil will darken and over-saturate colors. Scorching and scratches will tend to flatten colors or mute them all together. The trick is moderation, and to give you a better example of how these items will look, I'm going to back to the concrete texture from Part 1.

    First we'll try to simulate water / oil, as if it was trickling down the side of a wall. Create a new layer by clicking on the "Create a New Layer" button at the bottom of the Layers window, or by pressing "SHIFT + CTRL + N", and using the default layer settings. Choose a color to represent your running water... I chose R:190 G:170 B:40. Now select a soft brush, and set the brush size to a value between 10 and 15 (13 is a good default). In the new layer, start from the top of the image and gradually draw a line downwards as if the cursor was a droplet of liquid cutting a pathway for others to follow, like in the example shown here. Go to your toolbar and select the Burn tool. Set your brush size between 15 and 20 (17 is a default that I recommend), and your exposure to about 25%. Now in the background layer, trace the path of your droplet with the Burn tool. Accuracy isn't really a factor in this step, as imperfections only help to make the stain appear more natural. One or two passes should be good enough to get some small variation from the top layer. Finally, go to the layer blend properties for the new layer, choose "Overlay", and set the opacity to about 25%. When you're all done, you should get something like this. That's all there is to it!

    Next we'll try scorching. This is a really simple trick for making localized scorch marks. Start by going to your toolbar and selecting the "Lasso" tool. Using the Lasso tool, set the Feather value to 5, then draw the area you want to be scorched. Next, copy ("CTRL + C") and paste ("CTRL + V") that selection into a new layer. Now, go to Image > Adjust > Brightness / Contrast and reduce the contrast and brightness values. I chose to drop my brightness down to -75 and my contrast to -65 to get this result. Finally, go to your eraser in the toolbar and select a big, soft brush size of around, say 200-ish. Now hover over the top of the scorch mark and begin to erase around the top and sides of the blackened area. when you are finished, you should have something similar to what I have here. Pretty easy, huh?

    Now for the hard part, paint. This is difficult because of the variety of things paint can do as it becomes chipped and weathered. So for this tutorial I will solely be concentrating on creating the paint itself, and not weathering it. I'll also be going back to the original concrete texture from Part 1. Now, lets just assume that maybe you want to paint a cool word on your wall like "Danger" or "Suck", or maybe a red stripe or two... who knows. Create a new layer by pressing "SHIFT + CTRL + N" and make something similar to this inside it. If you are writing text, make sure that the text is rasterized, and is not a separate layer from anything else you may want to be turned into paint. Once you have everything you want turned to paint in one layer, go to Filter > Noise > Add Noise and add about 5% gaussian, monochromatic noise. Next, go to Filter > Render > Lighting Effects and try using the settings shown here.

    As soon as you finish and hit the "OK" button, you'll want to fade the lighting effects. To do that, go to Edit > Fade Lighting Effects or press "SHIFT + CTRL + F". Here, you'll want to set the opacity to around 50%, and the Mode to "Luminosity". If you've done it right, you should have something that looks like this. Finally, take your paint layer and lower it's opacity to around 80% or 85%. This should be just enough to let the pours and divits in your concrete to show through. If you're really detail oriented, then here is a fairly easy trick. Make a duplicate of the paint layer you just finished. Set the layer's blending to "Lighten", and then go back to the previous paint layer. Now, in this "Luminosity layer" you can use the eraser tool to litterally chip away at the edges and wherever there may be large cracks in the concrete. The "Lighten layer" leaves what appears to be leftover paint when you chip at the Luminosity layer. Here is an example.

    Seriously, from that point there are a hundred different things you can do. Hopefully I've given you enough to get you started. As always, if you have any questions about how to do something in particular, use the e-mail link below and I'll see what I can do.

Questions or comments? E-mail Mr. Lake