No More Snapshots – I Show You How to Use Textures

When you feel your work is just a “snapshot”, when it’s just like every other image out there…. or you like your main subject, but everything else is distracting because you had to snap that shot with all the mess….or you took your shot out of focus, yes that would be a “snapshot” too because unfortunately you just didn’t have the time to really grab a perfect in-focus shot.

DON’T THROW THAT IMAGE AWAY!

Use Textures to fix that “snapshot”… Below are some examples to help you.

The video tutorial below shows you how to apply a texture to your image, see examples and the reason why I used texture to fix my snapshots.

Here is an important tip… try a couple of textures on one image. I find that two to three textures gives the work impact.

Poinsettia with textures.

Poinsettia leaf with texture.

Masking out some of the texture will give the work depth. That’s what I did on the Situate lighthouse below.

Another great way to remove problem areas in your composition is to add texture. The silk flowers below had too much going on and I just wanted you to focus on three of the flowers, so I went to town with textures in the other areas of the image. I did some blending and playing with layer masks to really get what I wanted, which was to remove distraction on my main focal points.

Silk Flowers with Texture

If you want a flat look, then let the texture overlap on top of the main subject. In the work below, I wanted the flower to feel like it was colored with a pencil so I let the texture overlap the flower.

With the sunset below, I wanted some friction added to the story so I added texture. Now, I like both of the images below, but it’s the story I’m thinking about. “Electricity in the Desert.”  The “snapshot” I took now isn’t a “snapshot” any longer.

BEFORE

AFTER

With this Gerbera Daisy, I wanted you to feel the flower bleeding off into the background, so I added dimension with texture. I also added some water effects with a plugin called flood. It’s a lot of fun to play with… you can learn how to use Flood by CLICKING HERE.

Flower Flood with Texture

So please don’t toss that image that isn’t quite in focus or if you don’t like the color palette. Textures can help both of these problems.

I shot this quickly and to tell you the truth, I knew it wasn’t going to be perfect, but I had a plan to play with it. I used my texture called, “Webbed Rocks” to fix this image.

Dead flower with textures and stacked.

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Using Textures can help push your images to another level. So today’s quick inspiration and challenge to you is to NOT toss your work! Play with textures! If you sign up for my newsletter here, you’ll receive some of my free textures and the tutorial above on how to use them. If you join our membership program here, you receive 73 of my textures to play with plus a bunch more goodies that will help you push your work to the next level.

I hope you have an awesome time playing with your photographs! If you have any fun snap-shots that you’ve fixed, share how you did it in the comments below so we all can learn from you.

Cheers,

Janice Sullivan