Making a Chess Type Tile
By: Rogelio Olguin
What you should know:
You should know where filters are and how to have basic idea of the things in Adobe Photoshop. Just a basic knowledge of where to go around this program.
1# first step is open Abobe Photoshop duh:)
2# Go to file than new than when the window opens up use a pixel size of 128 v 128 with white background.
3# Go to layer and create a new layer. Once that is done get a color RGB of 133, 124, 110 and you have grayish/brownish type annoying color right? if so just use the paint bucket and drop the color into the new layer.
4# ok your texture is done! j/k (that was really corny) ok now go to the filters/noise/add noise add about 12% of noise... I know looks really bad.
5# in this way you can really go both ways here with go to filters and use blur to blur it around 3% or so or just get the blur tool around 20% and do only some spots. I like the blur tool more because this way you can blur some areas more and some areas leave them nice and grainy.
something like this
6# Now go to image/adjust/levels put this on the three input levels 0, 2.3 , 169 and now it looks like this.
7# ok now is the fun part:) go to layer/layer style/bevel & emboss yeah now you see some neat roundness in the texture. Ok no to change the settings in depth make it max in size make it "0" even though it is "0" it still shows a little bevel on it.
8# Now go to layer and flatten... this flatten command makes both layers come to one so it is one texture. Ok now go to filters blur/blur this will blur just enough that some of the ugliness of it is gone. ok now go to sharpen and sharpen more two times should bring back some grain again.
9# Now go to image/adjust/ hue saturation put all of the saturation to -100 this makes B&W. With out putting in grey scale.
10# now select the select tool or crop tool to crop all of the picture. than edit/copy. Go to file/new and make a 256 v 256 size canvas once you have that open select inside it and go to edit/past. The cropped picture appears inside the 256 v 256 canvas. Move the picture to the top right of the canvas so the side fits perfectly in the right top corner. like this...
11# now what we have one tile on the right corner of our canvas... ok now go to layer/new/layer and keep placing the tiles around intill you get something like this.
12# now you have a tiled work or art * cough* shit.... but looks dumb without any other details right? ok Detail now but before detail this is meant to be a chess tile... ok here goes. Go to windows/show layers... if you have that window open... good : ) now you can select the layer you want select the top left one now.
13# now go to image/adjust/brightness contrast. now move it around in till you get a nice dark color not all the way black but grayish. your choice really. now do the same with the lower right one. Remember you have to select that one with the window/show layers window. it should look like this...
14# Ok now flatten the whole thing and lets add some detail things. Once flattened go to your lasso tool it is one of the select tools. ok go insane and just select all over the the texture and than just let go it leaves some lasso marks if it does not select much redo it also use a "feather" of 2 to give it some mixing to it (the feather should be in the top task bar). now that you have good amount selected that you can work with and looks like a really odd selection now you can use the level again and change the tint to the selected part lighter just to change the lightness of it or darken it. It might look like this...
15# Ok now for smaller detail lets make some cool cracks. select a piece as shown in the picture below...
Once Selected comes a cool part again. go to edit copy/past. hmm nothing happened... :( no worries :) go to layer/layer style/inner shadow. Now your see something cool your see a crack on the floor looks neat ehh? Yep the fun part:) ok now just mess around with that once your done make more cracks with the same process diff types and stuff. here is the almost final textures. Bwhwhaha you thought you where done :) small note when trying to get more cracks you have to go back to original tile layer by the layer window.
some cracks
16# flatten again. Now you can either select the seams in the tiles and make them darker or just leave them like this. you can also change the colors by using image/adjust. color balance by selecting each tile and changing them to what you want. here are few color changes I did...
Tips: Sometimes you have to darken areas again and re touch like on the white area the grain was to much so I blurred it again and darken the cracks.
Practice makes prefect these same techniques can be used in other kind of textures. just test use filters test out a lot it takes patients but in the far run it pays of if you are serious in wanting the learn these things of graphic design. later in till the next Tutorial have fun : )