Photoshop - advanced textures (2)

8. Time to inflict some damage.

No "weathered metal" blade is completely intact. Part of getting a relatively realistic texture, is to attempt to simulate the ravages of time, war, use, misuse, etc. So, we select the Eraser Tool , and set the eraser size (in the Options palette to 1 pixel).

Use your best judgement to take a few chips, chunks, and scratches out of the edges of our blade. a few jagged scars, with a couple missing chips always gives a decent feel.

NOTE: Don't go overboard on this step, a few cracks and scratches look good, too many, will make it seem fake, and if you make your cracks too long, or smooth the graphic will look like....well...a graphic, and nothing that could be considered real at all. Oh boy, this is getting exciting...wait til we come on to the Dodge and Burn Tools!

When we've got just the right amount of damage inflicted to the edges (make friends with the UNDO button (or Ctrl + Z), and the History Palette if you go too far), then we're ready to use the Ctrl key method again to make a selection of our newly scarred Blade Layer.

9. Ctrl + click on the shape Layer Selection to get our Marching Ants going around the selection, create a New Layer above the Blade Layer,call it Gradient and select the Gradient Tool

Let's set our foreground colour to White, and the background colour to Black by clicking the respective colour boxes, and changing the shades....simple. (or if you're getting the hang of this, press D (Default) to change the Foreground/Background Colors to their "Default" of Black/White, and then X (Exchange) to swap the colors over. Good, innit?

Now, using the Gradient Tool, make sure the Gradient Tool Options are set to "Foreground to Background", then click in the upper left corner of our document, and drag down to the lower right. Release, and see the gradient fill the selection on the new layer.

If your gradient doesn't look like a decent fade from white to black, simply undo (Ctrl + Z), and try again, changing where you start your first click, and where you release it after dragging. Once our gradient is smooth and gradient-ish ;), we'll change the Layer Blending Mode to Overlay. The Gradient Layer will seem to "wrap" over the Blade Layer.

Now we go to the Channels Palette, and create a New Channel , keeping the Shape Layer Selection in place (i.e. the Marching Ants going)....

10. So, on our new channel, fill the Blade Layer Selection with White (make sure that's the Foreground Color and then press Alt + backspace), then without deselecting, create a new channel

With the blank new channel, and our Blade Selection in place, we go to FILTER...Noise...Add Noise.

Select Gaussian for distribution, and click the Monochromatic radio button (not needed on a channel, but good practice for Noise on a Layer). Play with the noise settings until you get some middle range of white and black distributed.

Now, use the Eraser Tool (about size 21, Soft-Edge and ease the opacity down to around 60%) to erase random patterns of the speckled noise (In the example we chose to concentrate the white specks at the outside edges, and mainly toward the top of the blade, but any random patterns will work to give texture). (Check the rollover image to the right).

11. When we've got the perfect noise distribution, click on the channel with the Noise in it (it should be at the bottom of the stack) and click the Load channel as Selection button. This will load the Noise texture as a Selection. Now go backto the Layers Palette, and Create a New Layer and call it Noise, above the Gradient Layer (i.e. above all other layers)

As metal ages, it begins to oxidize. Oxidization is the process we know as "rusting", however before those red iron spots of rust show through, oxidization takes the form of small light "spots" or "blisters" on the metal.

Fill the Noise selection with white on the New Layer (the marching ants should look all "speckly"), and set our blending mode to Overlay.

In the example, we then set the Layer Opacity to 75% but this value can be played with to weaken, or strengthen the lightening of our oxidization spots. Don't expect anything too dramatic - we're adding subtle little touches that will make all the difference.

12. Reset the Foreground/Background colors to Black/White by pressing D and use the Ctrl key on the scarred Blade Layer Selection, and Create a New Layer. On the New Layer, we go to FILTER...Render...Clouds. We repeat the Render Clouds command until you get a good even distribution (yep, just like the Noise was) of black and white. Now, we get a bit technical.

Deselect the scarred Shape Layer Selection, and we go to
FILTER...Distort...Polar Coordinates. Select Polar to Rectangular. Yes this will distort the New Layer unbelievably, but don't sweat, fun things are happening.

Now, add some Noise to the distorted layer (nice even distribution...be shocked ;) Once we've added some noise, go to FILTER...Blur...Motion Blur.
Play with the Motion Blur settings but make sure the blur direction is straight Up and Down (90°).

Again, we go to FILTER...Distort...Polar Coordinates but this time, select Rectangular to Polar.

SNAP!, our new layer is back in place over the rest of our Blade. Now make a scarred Shape Layer Selection by Ctrl-clicking on it and Select Inverse, and clear anything outside of the Blade area (Ctrl + X). Deselect, and set the blending mode to Overlay.

Important Note! If, after all this work, it's not looking too good, there are usually steps you can take to bring it back in line. Mine, for example was a bit dark - hiding some of the oh-so-subtle effects, so I just went to IMAGE...Adjustments...Brightness/Contast and eased the "Brightness" slider up (You get an on-screen preview so you needn't commit yourself to anything).

Much like the scarring of the Blade, we don't want to go too extreme here, but feel free to get creative. I like using a mixture of the Line Tool (set at 1 pixel, and with "Fill Pixels" set in the Options bar) and the Paintbrush Tool (also set to a 1 pixel brush) to do scratches, as they're tiny, and just a bit chaotic and ordered.

Create a new layer and call it Scratches!

Set our foreground colour to Black (to offset the white oxidization we already have), and begin making random lines on the new layer. Make a scarred Blade Layer Selection by Ctrl + clicking on this new layer, SELECT...Inverse, and clear. Now go back, and randomly erase parts of the lines with the Eraser Tool set to around 60% Opacity.

Set the blending mode to Color Burn, and set the opacity to 25% or so (again, feel free to play).