If you look at your patterns you will see there are a limited number of patterns available to you, well guess what, you can make your own.
Maybe first you will want to see what I am talking about, Ok here goes:
First open a picture in photoshop and duplicate it so there are two copies showing on your layers pallet. Next go to Layers then Layer style and Pattern Overlay. A new box will come up on screen showing, guess what ?, yes, patterns, or to be more precise, a pattern, by clicking on the down arrow to the right you will be able to see what other patterns are available to you. Not very many are there ?
You can, of course, go through the list, and add more patterns already within photoshop, but they are just patterns of various mundane objects.
Let’s add some interesting one’s: I will lead you through making one pattern, then you can carry on and add your own as it suits you.
OK, close the picture you have open and open a good picture, either a landscape picture or a crowd picture or maybe even a picture of a group of animals, a picture that you would be pleased to see as a background in one of your other pictures or a picture you would like to see inside text perhaps.
Now, all you have to do is go to Edit and then Define Pattern and give it a suitable name in the new box that opens, there, you have now made a pattern.
OK, now that you have made a pattern what do you do with it.
There are a number of options open to you, first, you can put it inside text or second use it as a background to a picture, how… follow the script, first we will start with text.
Select the type tool from your toolbar and put your cursor on the picture you already have open, then type the word TEXT, best in Upper case if you can.
Then hit enter on your keyboard to embed the text. Next select Ctrl T and a bounding box will appear round your text, then using the move tool draw the text out as large as you can make it within your picture, when you are satisfied click OK on your keyboard.
Now, go to Layer and click Layer Style, then pattern overlay, a new box entitled Layer Style will open up, go to pattern in the middle, select the down arrow on the right of the pattern picture and select the picture you saved earlier, if necessary you may need to mover your style pallet out of the way so you can see the effect you have created, Beware: don’t close the style pallet yet because you will not be able to move the picture under the text, so move the picture round on your picture by clicking on the picture and move the pattern until it shows those parts round inside the text as you want it.
Got the Idea.
When you are satisfied that you have placed the pattern within the text as you want it you can close the layer style pallet. You can still move the text round your picture and you can even add a stroke colour to the edge of the text if you want to. Go on give it a try.
When you are finished and you have set up the text as you want it flatten and save the image. Good Luck.
