So I like to use textures...

I love how textures can take a boring photo and give it dimension and interest.  It's also an easy way to "scrapbook" a photo for giving away to the grandma's, aunties and friends.  Today on I heart faces, it's Fix-It Friday where we can edit a photo they give us however we like to make it a better photo.  It's so interesting to see how lots of people come up with different ways of editing.  Of course, many people crop the photo...they may give it a totally different angle and play around with the color or make it black and white. 

before editing 

Because I knew I wanted to add a texture and lettering, I cropped it with those in mind.  (I am using Photoshop CS4 by the way)...I always make a couple duplicate layers and those are the ones I change so I always have the original to work with.  My daughter taught me a cool way to sharpen a photo and bring out the color, I just go to "filter" on a duplicate layer choose other/high pass usually set to around 30 and after that's done choose overlay/softlight/hardlight and decrease the opacity if needed.  I add the texture by making it a layer (copy/paste from a texture image) and choosing the overlay/softlight/hardlight thing the same as the filter I just described.  I then added the lettering.  On this photo I wanted the backround color to be more intense so I made another layer and erased the boy out of the photo (which was easy because of the light halo around him).  Then I just saturated the color and changed the hue a little.  It took me 10 or 15 minutes to do and it's lots of fun.

I have a collection of textures on flickr you might like to try (I used one from the Guadalajara textures I made from a trip to Mexico) and you can see them here:  Guadalajara Textures on flickr or another collection here:  Fine Art Textures on Flickr   Please feel free to download them and use them, I would just appreciate a credit for the texture and that they don't get posted online anywhere without the credit/link or offered for sale.  You can learn alot about textures from a great blog by a very generous artist called Shadowhouse Creations and you can see his latest post from my blog list to the left.  It's also great fun to see the artistic efforts people create by posting them under the texture that gets used.  I've learned much seeing how others see things differently just like I am learning with this Fix-It Friday challenge that you can view here.

Here are a few photos I have posted on flickr with textures, sometimes I am inspired by old faded postcards and photos, sometimes a style of painting or art medium and it's fun to play around with.  Have you used textures?