I asked my Flickr friend Heather HOW TO USE TEXTURES. This post is her answer. Thanks Heather.

Thank you so much. I'm probably not the best person to explain using textures, as I myself am still learning to use them, but I'll give it a go. This is actually a tutorial I got from another person on flickr which was very helpful to me from AndreaRenee www.flickr.com/photos/30282864@N02/. She also has a bunch of free textures on her site and amazing photostream so worth checking out, but here is her tutorial. Oh and the software I use is photoshop elements 7.0.

1. Open your picture of choice.

2. Open your texture/background in a new window.

3. Right click on your texture, go to Select>All.

4. Right click on your texture one more time, go to Edit>Copy. Minimize your texture.

5. Now on your picture, right click on it, go to Edit>Paste Into.

6. Most of the time your texture will have to be scaled up or down to fit your picture, the scale tool will be in your toolbox.

7. Your texture will appear as a floating selection in the layer doc, right click on it and make it a new layer.

8. Now the fun begins!! Playing around with different modes(drop down box on the layer doc) and opacities(slider on the layer doc), Yay!! =D

9. And if you don't want the texture/background on the skin or anything else, just use the eraser.

10. And when you're done playing around and you like what you see, right click on the layer doc and go all the way done to Flatten Image. Now save =)


***Tips***

When I'm working with a background, the mode is usually multiply and the opacity is usually set between 40-60%, this mode is more forgiving with erasing!! I hardly ever leave the opacity at 100%, you want the natural shadows to show through so it looks more natural.