Design, Typography & Graphics with tips and tricks for design, printing, photography and publishing of all kinds The official publication of The Design & Publishing Center. The best place to start is with the latest issue of the Newsletter ...continued from previous page The key to seamless backgrounds is the Photoshop Offset Filter. With this, most any texture or 'scene' can be made seamless. If the image is a recognizable object or shape, some care should be taken to plan the positioning of literal images should fall on the tile. __ I've seen background tiles in all sizes and shapes. It you're building a web page, sometimes it's better to have a wide, short rectangle. Remember that gif files compress smaller to the horizontal than to the vertical. I usually go with a square, because the Offset filter seems to work better, and the calculations are easier on my tired old brain. __ In our example here, we selected the best looking patch of denim from the scan, and cropped it down to a 144 x 144 tile. Using the Filter > Other > Offset filter, I set the "Wrap Around" radio button, and gave the distance 72 pixels, exactly half of the 144. I didn't have to do that, but if there are pixels that need to be modified, that puts them in the center of the work area. Using the Clone (Rubber Stamp) tool, it's a simple matter to smudge around, cloning pixels until all of the repetition is gone. __ You should view your creation often as work progresses so any unwanted, repeating flaw in your texture can be cloned out. I keep a larger file open in the background, "Define Pattern" at each new version of the image, then Fill with Pattern in the backup file window. Obviously the more aggravated the pattern, the easier it will be to hide any unwanted flaws... smoother the patterns demand more careful attention to any seam that lingers. __ Once you're satisfied you have a winner, just save it out as a gif file and you're ready to go. For backgrounds destined for printing presses, extra care needs to be taken to retain file resolutions. For web backgrounds always save as a gif file, but NOT a transparent 89a file. __ If you want your texture available to Photoshop and other plug-ins that utilize textures, save a copy of your masterpiece in the Photoshop > Presets > Textures folder as a dot-psd file. Be sure to convert it to grayscale, flatten, and remove any paths or channels. Now it will be 'found' by other programs that automatically look there for textures. That's all there is to it. Oh, by the way: to the reader who wanted to know how to put a texture or pattern into typography, our heading was simple... type the text, (In PS5 and 6 drop it to rastar type layer) while it's still selected on a new layer (with the racing ants indicating it's selected) simply go to the Edit menu and say "Fill with Pattern", and presto you've filled it with the pattern. There are more complicated methods, but if you know what the type will say, and what texture you want to use, you can quickly do it this way. In our version above we simply applied the Inner Bevel filter to it while still selected to give it that raised look. Thanks for reading! Note that a whole collection of background is being added to the Publishers' Warehouse this month. Drop on in and get the directions to the loading dock. <- back to the first page _|_ back to the Graphics Department Front Page You are visiting DT&G Magazine: http://www.graphic-design.com/DTG-Library.html Writers, Designers, Consultants, Publishers are encouraged to become published in The Design Center Publications! This is a Spam-Free web site. Help support a healthier Spam-free environment! Thank you for visiting the DT&G Magazine wing of the The Design & Publishing Center at http://www.graphic-design.com/DTG/ The Design & Publishing Center is an Affiliate of The Graphic Design Network at Graphic-Design.Net, Amazon Books at Amazon.com, as well as The News-Serve Network at News-Serve.net, The User Group Network at User-groups.net, The User Group Academy at UGAcademy.org, and The Desktop Publishing Jumpstation at DTP-Jumpstation.com ........ Notes: The screen shots herein represent the copyrighted works of their respective owners, and are used here for editorial demonstration purposes. please read and be aware of our Legal Properties & Disclaimers document. Not all areas of the online environment allow special characters such as the registration and trademark marks. This file will alert you to proprietary works that cannot be duplicated or distributed. Copyright 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, by Showker Graphic Arts, The Design & Publishing Center, on behalf of the respective authors and artists. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. &photographic, Photoshop Tips & Tricks, &Type, WebDesign & Review, and Pixelsmith are all trademarks for The Design & Publishing Center. Other products mentioned in these pages are the registered trademarks of their respective owners.