Blue Lobster Art and Design - Sacramento Web Design and Graphic Design » textures

Create a Vintage Linen Colortone Postcard in Photoshop CS4

Dawn Pedersen — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 00:44:09 +0000

Vintage Colortone Effect

Linen postcards were printed from 1930 through 1945. They have a unique and appealing look. The thick paper was embossed on the picture side to give the card a “linen” texture, and the cheap inks created vivid colors. You can create this effect using a modern photograph and Photoshop.

Here’s an original vintage postcard:

Original Vintage Postcard - Colorado National Monument (click to enlarge)

Detail of Linen Texture and Color

Here’s our final image made to mimic the Colortone look:

Final Colortone-style image

A Little History

The vintage postcard above of Colorado National Monument was printed by Curt Teich & Co. (Chicago). They used a color printing technique they called “C.T. Art-Colortone”. Until it closed in 1978, The Teich Company was the world’s largest printer of view and advertising postcards.

Vintage linen postcards have become prized by some collectors, and there’s even a book about them (see the link at the end of the tutorial.) The linen postcards usually portrayed landmarks, landscapes, and roadside attractions from photographs, but some were more illustrative. They were printed on a lithography press using color separation.

Beginning in the late 1940s, linen postcards fell out of fashion when polychrome printing was invented. However, Curt Teich still used the C.T. Art-Colortone technique on these smooth-surface “French Fold” postcards from 1951, below.

'French Fold' Postcard Set for Southwestern Oklahoma - 1951

Source Image

You may use my photograph below for this tutorial. If you want to use one of your own, try to find an image with a variety of color. Click on the image below to download the full-size photograph (309KB).

Giraffes at the San Francisco Zoo, © Dawn Pedersen

Step One: Make it Vivid

The Art-Colortone postcards have very strong colors but minimal detail. We’re going to increase the contrast and color saturation with a simple technique.

Open the picture in Photoshop and press Ctrl+J (Mac: Cmd+J) to copy the image to a new layer.
Double-click on the words “Layer 1″ in the Layers panel, and rename the layer as “Vivid”. Click OK (Go to Window > Layers if the Layers panel is not visible).
Change the Blend Mode for the Vivid layer to Overlay.

Set Duplicate layer to Overlay

Now the photo is a bit dark. Let’s lighten the mood.

With the Vivid layer selected, click on the “Create new fill or adjustment layer” icon at the bottom of the Layers panel. Select Levels.

Add a Level adjustment layer

In the Adjustments panel, move the center gray slider (gamma input) to the left ever so slightly. I set mine to 1.20.

Move gamma slider to the left

Step Two: Simplify It

With cheap inks comes a lack of detail. We need to blur some of the colors while keeping some black edge details. This will result in a slightly watercolor effect.

Make a copy of all the layers merged together: select the Levels adjustment layer at the top of the stack in the Layers panel, then press Shift+Ctrl+Alt+E (Mac: Shift+Cmd+Opt+E).
Rename this new layer as Merged.

Copy of merged layers at top of stack

Right-click on the Merged layer and select Convert to Smart Object. We want to run a filter next without destroying pixels.
Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur. Set the radius to 1.0 and click OK.

Gaussian Blur

With the Merged layer still selected, click on the “Create new fill or adjustment layer” icon again and select Threshold.
Set the blend mode for the new adjustment layer to Multiply.

Threshold adjustment layer set to Multiply

In the Adjustments panel, move the slider to the until there is only a small amount of black in the grassy areas. I set my slider to 71.

Adjust the Threshold slider

Next: Step Three: Edge Details

A Better Method of Adding Texture in Photoshop

Dawn Pedersen — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 18:23:35 +0000

Canvas Texture

Photoshop has a number of texture filters that can be applied directly to an image. If you want to make an image look like it’s painted on a textured surface, don’t apply the texture on the same layer. I have found that a more realistic looking texture can be created by applying the texture to a layer above your image. I’ll show you a trick to accomplish this. I’ll also give you a quick rundown of what each of the texture filters looks like.

I’m working with this wonderful photo of meerkats that my husband took at the Los Angeles Zoo. But this technique will work with any image.

Meerkats

Make It Artsy

Before I apply my texture, I want the image to look a little more artsy, like maybe they were painted. Here’s what I did with my meerkats:

Copy the image to a new layer: Ctrl+J (Mac: Cmd+J)
Filter > Cutout

Number of Levels: 8
Edge Simplicity: 0
Edge Fidelity: 3
Click OK

Cutout Filter

Set the blend mode of the new layer to Overlay. This allows some of the detail of the original photo back through.

Overlay Blend Mode

Save the file.

Artsy Meerkats

The Yucky Way to Apply Texture

What’s wrong with applying a texture to the image layer? It can look ugly. The texture filter applies the texture according to the lights and darks in an image. If I merge my two meerkat layers into a new layer (Ctrl+Shift+Alt+E) and apply the Craquelure filter (Filter > Texture > Craquelure…), it looks pretty bad:

Bad Craquelure

This may be the effect you are going for in many images. However, to get a smooth, overall texture as if the meerkats were painted on a particular surface, I like the method below.

The Better Method of Applying Texture

Now let’s see what it looks like another way:

Add a new layer at the top of the layer stack. Click on the “Create a new layer” icon at the bottom of the Layers panel (Window > Layers if you cannot see the Layers panel.)

Add a New Layer

Edit > Fill
From the “Use:” dropdown, select “50% Gray” and click OK.

Fill 50% Gray

With the new layer still selected in the Layers panel, apply the Craquelure filter:
1. Filter > Texture > Craquelure…
2. Move the sliders around until you get a texture you like.
3. Click OK.

Nice Craquelure

Set the blend mode for this layer to Overlay.

Overlay Blend Mode

Save your file. You can compare the two texture applications below.

Yucky vs. Pleasant

On the next page, I’ll show each of Photoshop’s texture filters.

Photoshop’s Built-In Actions: Textures

Dawn Pedersen — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 05:32:53 +0000

Rusted Metal

Photoshop actions allow you to record a series of steps that you might do numerous times on other images, and then play back that series automatically on a new image. Photoshop CS4 comes with dozens of actions already created for you. In this article, I’ll give a pictorial run-down of Photoshop’s built-in Textures actions.

See Related Posts at the end to click through to the other built-in action sets.

Playing Built-In Actions

To open a non-Default set of built-in actions:

Window > Actions
Click on the menu icon at the top-right corner of the Actions panel.
Look near the bottom of the menu where there is a list of seven sets (such as “Image Effects”).
Select a set. It will added below the Default Actions set.

Actions Panel Menu

Click the gray triangle to the left of the action set you just added, to open the list.
Select an action, and click the Play selection button at the bottom of the Actions panel.

Play Action

You can find more ready-made actions at the Photoshop Exchange.

Textures

Each of these actions fills the document with a texture on a new layer. Experiment with blend modes on this new layer to show the layers underneath. Your results will vary with image size.

Parchment Paper

Parchment Paper

This action will prompt you with, “In the Texturizer dialog, load ‘Canvas’. Scaling =71, Relief =1, Light Direction =Top left.”

Recycled Paper

Recycled Paper

Sandpaper

Sandpaper

Wood – Pine

Wood - Pine

Wood – Oak

Wood - Oak

This action will prompt you with, “In the Texturizer dialog, load ‘Canvas’. Scaling=200, Relief=19, Light Direction=Left.”

Wood – Rosewood 1

Wood - Rosewood 1

This action will prompt you with, “In the Texturizer dialog, load ‘Canvas’. Scaling =130, Relief =11, Light Direction =Top.”

Wood – Rosewood 2

Wood - Rosewood 2

This action will prompt you with, “Hit OK in the shear dialog box.”

Asphalt

Asphalt

Bricks

Bricks

Black Granite

Black Granite

Cold Lava

Cold Lava

Gold Sprinkles

Gold Sprinkles

Green Slime

Green Slime

Ink Blots

Ink Blots

This action will double the size of your image, adding the extra width to the right of your existing image.

Marble

Marble

Molten Lead

Molten Lead

Neon Rubber Bands

Neon Rubber Bands

Obsidian

Obsidian

Pastel Glass Tiles

Pastel Glass Tiles

Psychedelic Strings

Psychedelic Strings

Rippled Oil

Rippled Oil

Rusted Metal

Rusted Metal

Stained Glass

Stained Glass

Stucco

Stucco

Sunset

Sunset

Marble

Marble