Seemless texture creation in Photoshop

A friend asked how to do this in Photoshop, so I thought I'd post it here.

Not all textures are ready made to tile seemlessly. Here's what I do to make the texture seemless using Photoshop

1. I start with the texture in question, and check the image size. This one happens to be 256x256.



2. I use the "Offset" filter to shift the image over and up, setting it to half the image dimesions (128x12. This produces the image below, with verticle and horizontal lines running through it's center. These lines are an indication that the texture is not seemless. What I have done here is bring the edges of the texture into the center of the image where I can see the visual relation of it's opposing sides. I know the edges in the offset image are fine since they were once the center of the original image.



3. I then proceed to sample out the hard lines using the "Rubber Stamp" tool. In the result below the little circle in the image is the "Rubber Stamp" brush shape in the process of sampling another part of the image. If you look to the right and up just a bit, you will see the area that is being sampled.



4. Now I can "Select All" and "Define" this image as a "Texture" to test it as a 512x512 tiled texture.



Voila! A seemless texture tiled at 512x512. This one is a little repetative because of it's small size, but any size texture can be quickly turned into a seemless texture using the "offset" filter and the "Rubber Stamp" tool.

Happy texturing everyone!
NAM

This would have been the result, had I not done a thing to the image before tiling it.

::attempts to bookmark thread so I can try this in photoshop when i have more time:: Awesome hehe always wondered if there was a good way to do this hehe all i have been doing is copying the whole image, and then cutting, rotating and pasting this technique sounds like it is much quicker hehe ty for sharing

Nam, you rock.


-Ghoti

Thanks much, Nams!

Very nice tutorial which can benefit many people new to texturing! Thanks for posting.

Thank you! I've been wanting to know how to do this, but have been to lazy to find a tutorial

On a related note, and I'm not sure how useful people might find this, but...

For any image scale in Photoshop that's a power of two (eg, 256x256, 512x512), the 'Render Clouds' filter will create a tileable pattern automatically. It's kinda handy, since 'Render Clouds' seems to be the starting point for a lot of texture effects.

Excellent Namsor Thanks for posting this.

I use a slightly different method than you do.

1. drag out layer guides (the blue lines) to divide the image into quadrants
2. in the view menu, turn on snap
3. select and copy the top half of the image.
4. past as a new layer and move it down to the bottom of the image
5. add a layer mask and paint it with a large soft brush so that it blends into the bottom layer.
6. select and copy the bottom half of the bottom layer
7. paste it into a new layer and move it up to the top of the image.
8. Add a layer mask and blend it into the two layers underneath
9. Do the same thing for the left half, moving ot over to the right and blending it with a mask
10. Do the same thing for the right half, moving it over to the left of the image and blending it

Attached is the finished tileable image and the layers palette so you can see the masks. As a final step, if needed, you can use the clone tool to clean up parts of the image where the layers didn't blend well.

I'd never thought of using the offset filter before. Looks like the results are pretty similar and your technique might be faster. Love to see how other people do stuff. Thanks!

Chip I used to use something really similar to your method... her method is about a bajillion times faster than mine so I would encourage you to try it too... ugh.. cant believe I never thought of this... awesome work

Hi Nam, Thanks for the info

I also use PSP to make Seemless texture with 20/20 it's a great plugin! But I like photoshope better for making any textures.

here;s the site for 20/20

http://www.hotfreeware.com/2020/2020.htm

I know exactly how you feel, Spider. I've been using PS for almost 15 years and I'm constantly amazed at the amount of simple things that can still make me slap my forehead with a "DUH!" hehe

I remember it well. The filter menu was 1/4 the size and John Knoll was still in the credits. Hehe, I guess we're letting people know our age.

Hmmm, I learned from Fleabite in one of her in-world texture classes many months ago to use Filter - Distort - Displace, dump the image into a full alpha channel (transparent) document, and then use clone stamping to clean up the image and make it tileable. This sounds similar and highly effective.

Beryl, I'm very curious about your method (or Fleabite's). I know there's a bazillion ways to do similar things using PS. It's such a versatile application. If you feel it's worthwhile, post a step by step. I typically use the distortion filters for creating new textures, but have not used them to make existing textures seemless. Just like Chip said, there's always somthing new to learn about simple things in PS. I know the filter you are using requires a distortion map (typically a smaller PSD file). I would like to see what that file looks like. I may have another use for it

Let's see, Flea's method she taught is basically to crop your photo you want to tile to 512x512 or 512x256 or some multiple thereof, and make sure you have a file with a full alpha channel (i.e. a fully transparent file) saved in the same size somewhere. With your picture you want to tile open, go Filter - Distort - Displace, set Horizontal and Vertical Scales to about 50%, set Displacement Map to Tile and Undefined Areas to Wrap Around. Then it will ask you to "Choose a Displacement Map," and you need to select your transparent file. You are left with a file that is split into four (unequal) quadrants with edges that will tile. Then take the Clone Stamp Tool or Paintbrush Tool and modify the file, making sure that any lines evident where the four sides of the texture that has been displaced meet are blended. Depending on the file, it can be tricky and take a lot of work, or it can be easy. You can also play around with the Scales percentage, setting it anywhere between 10-90% to see if it produces a better looking picture.

Once you blend and change everything in the middle (don't mess with the edges), you have a file that is tileable.

Thanks, this is great, I never bothered with that feature before (duh). I tend to use the pattern maker in image ready (bundled with ps) but that often gives fuzzy edges to items with lots of details, I am gonna go give this a whirl!! whoo hoo

great posts! thanks guys

Ok, for those too lazy do the editing yourself, here's a quick and dirty action set that makes your textures seemless with the click of a mouse.

Just save the attachment here to your hard drive, unzip it to the Photoshop Actions folder (located in Presets), fire up PS, open your texture and resize it to either 512x512 or 256x256, click the appropriate action (either Seemless512 or Seemless256) and instantly make your texture seemless.

These actions are not as perfect or as versatile as hand editing, but will go a long way towards smoothing out those seems. Results may vary from texture to texture.

Thanks Nam..this will be great to use in PS!!

Of the many ways to make seamless tiles, perhaps THIS is the easiest and most versitile....

http://www.redfieldplugins.com/filterSeamlessWorkshop.htm

...and it's free =^_^=

wooooot!

TY!

you just solved at least 6 problems of mine.

Thanks for the tips AND for the links, all.

Bumped for Barnes.

Fleabite I think I love you.