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How To Create Minimalistic Landscapes Using Blur Filters in Photoshop

 For at least 10 - 15 years I love creating abstract minimalistic landscapes such as beach and forest scenes in my post processing of photos using a range of Photoshop's blur filters.  Here's one of my latest images that features this (and other) techniques: The original photo was taken almost 15 years ago with a 7 megapixel Canon Camera, but I wanted to challenge myself and try to make more interesting image out of it.  Start I came across this image while browsing through my photo archive and kind of liked the scene with the woman enjoying standing in or close to the surf. Editing Steps 1. I expanded the image from its 4:3 ratio to a square format making the added part transparent. Then I selected the blue sky and erased it. As I knew I wanted to create an abstract image I searched for a cloudy sky and found a suitable photo in my library, that would make a more interesting sky than a bland blue one.   I positioned this sky a layer under the beach photo and go...
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Updated: Steps to creating textures: Shooting surfaces & Free Texture

Hi,
I have updated this old, but still valid tutorial on shooting surfaces for textures. I also added a new high-res freebie!
Have a nice weekend!

June 23, 2018

Hello,

I'd like to give some hints & tips concerning shooting surfaces that may serve as a basis for the creation of your own texures.


Shooting surfaces & textures
  • Use auto focus, in my experience it is very hard to focus textures manually. Even with auto focus you should take various shots to make sure the focus is right.

  • Distance to surface: Normally you want to have great detail. Depending on the surface you are going to shoot, you will have to get closer (fabrics, paint, clothes) or farther away ( rough stone walls, soil, bricks). However you should fill the full frame with what you are shooting.

  • Angle: The object of desire should be shot in a 90° angle facing the camera directly. If you don't do this, you might have to fix perspective issues, but keep in mind that there are limits to the extend of what you can remedy in software.

  • Light: avoid dark shadows, flare, reflections – shoot on a cloudy day, never in direct sunlight (if possible), don't use a flash!

  • Aperture: avoid shallow dof. In my experience an aperture of 4.5. - 7.1. is best.

  • Exposure: keep your ISO as low as possible (ISO 100/200).

  • Shutter Speed: If you shoot handheld a speed of 1/60 and higher is recommended. Blurred parts of a texture kill detail and might render your shot unfit for use as a texture. If you shoot in darker surroundings use a tripod.

  • Shoot in RAW. I normally do a lot of post processing on my textures and RAW gives you alot more of possibilities.

  • Lenses: I found out that shooting with an angle of 35 mm to 50 mm is best, so better no wide angle lenses, because of the lens distortion.

 This short article comes with another free texture. Just click on the picture to download it from Deviantart!





Next time I will give another example of how I finally create a texture. You can check out my first post on the actual creation of a texture here:

the making of a texture

 Have a great weekend!!



 


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