Making a New Pattern (Part 2)

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By John Sweeney - 16th of January 2007

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Now that you have made a new pattern we will learn how to apply it to a photograph, easy peasy, just follow the instructions:

Open a picture with perhaps one person in it, the reason I say one person is so that we can use our pattern as a complete background in this case and one person in a photograph make it simpler, you can move on to 2 or more people when you have learnt how to do the job.

OK, picture open, make a copy of it on your layers pallet, you do know how to do that don't you ? Just drag it down to the create a new layer icon at the bottom of the pallet.

You will notice that the upper of the two pictures is highlighted on the pallet, this is exactly what we want. The Background copy is the active copy and the one we will be working on.

Now, we need to add a layer mask, just follow the instructions, it's really not difficult I assure you. To do this click on the white circle within a grey square on the bottom of the layers pallet, the second icon from the left. Now a white square has appeared in the upper or copy of your picture on the layers pallet, your layer mask is now in place, and all the work will be done on this layer.

Look on your tools pallet, see the black and white square towards the bottom, make sure that black is the foreground colour and white is the background colour. Now, click on the white layer mask on your layers pallet just to make sure that that is the active or working layer. Next select a brush, you can make it smaller or larger by using the square bracket keys on your keyboard just to the right of the letter P. Now using the brush paint over the picture of the person on the picture in front of you, nothing will actually happen, so try and be as accurate as possible, but, when you have finished you will, or should, notice the shape of the person appearing in black on the layer mask.

If you have gone outside the area of the person you can correct it by using the background or white colour to return that part of the picture to what it was before you painted black over it, just change the white colour to foreground by using the two headed arrow arrow above the colour selection box.

Now you are ready to apply your new pattern as the background, click on Layer, Layer Style and then Pattern Overlay, select the appropriate pattern, if necessary move the layer style out of your way so that you can move the pattern around on your picture. When you are satisfied close the layer style and your picture is finished.

Of course, if you click on the correct layer in the layers pallet you can still move your pattern round and correct it. You can also you the black and white colours on your main subject for more accuracy, i.e. if you have a white area round your subject select the colour white, a small brush and paint round the white areas to get a firmer border between the two, any mistakes can be corrected by switching to black.

Hope you enjoyed it.