Sunday, January 09, 2011

Photoshop: Working With Patterns

User level: Intermediate
Application required: Adobe Photoshop (CS3 above)

This is a simple screen-shot tutorial on how to create interesting patterns for any creative work including book covers, cover art, digital art and so on. Youtube offers several tutorial on how to use the Photoshop tools, you can search for the tutorials there I hope you guys enjoy and produce an interesting outcome. ;-)

Let's begin!

01. Open a blank canvas; use Pen Tool to draw your desired shape.


02. Duplicate the floral and change to a different color.


and go to FILTER>LIQUIFY.


Select the desired amount of the brush and push the tip of the flower to create more curve.


03. Then you enhance by adding gradient to the flower's interface 


You can enable your grid view to ensure it's symmetrical (balance)



Moving in with patterns

04. After you finish enhancing or modifying your shape (Flower), duplicate it in a new layer. Select the TRANSFORM tool and Resize it smaller, just nicely visible to create a pattern.



05. Hide the original shape (flower) layer. Please make sure the background is set to transparent (You can hide your background layer)


06. Highlight the resized shape, then go to EDIT > DEFINE PATTERNS.


Rename your pattern so that when you want to use it, it's easier to look.


07. Create a new layer, go to EDIT > FILL IN PATTERN. Your canvas will automatically fill with the repeated shape (flower) to create an interesting pattern.


Play around with other tool to make your layout more interesting but simple. Don't overdo.



You can also go to your background canvas layer and fill in with background color.



Result 

You can then insert text or image. Here is the final product, my upcoming e-book cover. Enjoy!


I will add more digital artwork samples that utilize the pattern technique to create other form of arts. Bookmark and don't forget to RT this! Thank you and stay creative!
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