In this tutorial, you will learn how to make a simple wood pattern. These patterns really come in handy when using them in conjunction with other images to make new textures, since you can tile and overlap the edges to make longer or thicker planks later on. We'll get into that in part 2 of this series.

    Ok, down to business. The first thing you'll want to do is create a new image and set the resolution to 256 pixels wide and 4096 pixels high. I know that sounds a bit extreme, but it's important as you'll see it form the natural wood grain that is always so hard to mimic when drawing by hand and keeping the texture tile-friendly. Once you have your blank canvas, make sure your image is set to RGB color, then set your foreground color to R:90 G:90 B:90, and your background color to R:190 G:190 B:190...these values should resemble light grey and dark grey.

    Now we're ready to start creating the texture. Go to your Filters menu, select Render, and choose Clouds. You should see something similar to this.

    The image needs to be condensed, or "squashed", so that the clouds will form the wood grain. Go to your Image menu and choose Image Size. Make sure that "constrain proportions" is unchecked, and re-size your height to 128 pixels and your width to 512 pixels, as shown here. Your image should now look similar to this.

    Now, at this point you can go in lots of directions depending on exactly what type or style of wood you're looking to create. This particular tutorial shows you one style of wood, but the process of creating different styles or types usually follow the same process I'm about to show you in the next couple of steps. While going through these next steps, try to think about how you can accomplish a different look for the wood plank that you're working on by adjusting the values given in this tutorial.

    Now we're going to make this thing look like wood! Hit "CTRL + A" to select the image, copy it, then create a new image with the same dimensions and paste it there for later use. You can minimize it to better focus on the portion you're working on. For the meantime, we'll refer to this copy as the "scratch copy".

    We have to first give the plank a more natural grain, so open Filters > Noise > Add Noise, and give it a noise level of about 4, make sure the type of noise is "Gaussian", and that "Monochrome" is checked. Next we'll enhance the natural bumps and canals in the wood surface, so go to Filters > Render > Lighting Effects, and try the settings shown here. The image should now look something like this.

    Ok, it's time to color the plank. Go to Image > Adjust > Hue / Saturation, or press "CTRL + U", and try the settings given in this example. Next we need to bring back the "scratch copy" that we saved earlier and color it a slightly different shade or hue than the previous. Once you have finished these items, copy and paste the scratch copy onto the master that we've been working on. Don't delete your scratch copy, as you may need it later.

    Ok, now that we're back to one plank again, we can begin blending the two layers. Lets start by adding a layer mask to the top layer. If you're unfamiliar with this technique, here is a simple explanation:

• A layer mask is a separate channel of an image that acts as an alpha channel. Values in an alpha channel are black and white, where black is transparent, and white is opaque. This special channel allows you to do some very complicated layer blending where only portions of an image are required in the final image. To create a layer mask on a layer, choose Layer > Add Layer Mask > Reveal All. When you ever may need to edit the layer mask, simply click on the image of the layer mask on the currently selected layer.

    With that said, lets take our layer, make sure the layer mask is selected, and go to Filters > Render > Clouds. The black and white cloud pattern should make transparent "holes" on your layer, showing the plank underneath. You may want to adjust the brightness and / or contrast of the mask so that the transparent portions are more or less defined. Adjusting the hue or saturation of the image layer may also bring out some other wood-like characteristics you might like. If you're curious, here is the final product with some minor adjustments to contrast, saturation, and noise.

    Seriously, from here it's all roads to Rome... there is an unlimited number of possibilities of what you can do to make this plank a pine two-by-four, or a lavishly polished slab of Cherry or Mahogany. I would suggest multiple layers with different masks and colors, some with higher concentrations of noise, or different lighting types. Adding a lot of depth gives the wood more character, and makes it more enjoyable to look at. Don't get discouraged if it doesn't look good the first few times, like everything, creating good textures requires some practice. I hope this tutorial has been of some help to you.

Questions or comments? E-mail Mr. Lake