Many people seem to get caught up in the complexity of computers and don’t realize just how simple things really are until they have spent far too much time searching for answers. Take for example the idea of how to download textures into Photoshop. Textures are by default images, and now days, Photoshop can open pretty much any image format or extension you throw at it. So to download textures into Photoshop, follow these simple steps and you will have textures in Photoshop, ready to use in whatever graphic or design project you may be working on.
There are lots of free texture sites out there, just like this one. Each has it’s own unique collection of images, usually based on the tastes of the website’s owner or the category in which the owner spends their time working. We spend a lot of time making textures for 3D modeling and virtual worlds, so most of our textures pertain to creating game content and texturing 3D models.
Different sites will have different requirements you must meet to download the texture they are offering. Some will request that you click a button that opens a popup advertisement, then starts the download of the texture image. Others will redirect you to a file hosting site which will ask you to wait 30 seconds while they offer you a paid account on their site to bypass the delay and get faster speed. But the good sites will simply allow you to download the image by clicking on it or will open the image in it’s large format, exposing the image for download.
On our site, you simply hover your mouse over the image preview, and click the ENLARGE button and the image opens in full high definition format. Here you can right click on the image and select “Save image as…”, then choose a location to save it, give it a name, and save. Alternatively, you can simply drag the image from the browser and drop it into the folder or window you wish to save it in. We tend to use this latter method as it is quick and simple. You can drag images from the web and drop them on your desktop for easy access from Photoshop or other programs, and gather the working files into a project folder when you are done.
You can even drag images from a website and drop them directly into Photoshop, though if the image has transparency, the transparency will be lost. In this case, drag the image to the desktop or a folder and it will preserve the transparency. Then proceed to load the image in Photoshop using one of the methods above.
You have several choices here as well. We again tend to use the drag and drop method as it is far faster and easier. Locate the texture image on your desktop, or in the project folder you saved it to, and simply drag the image onto your open Photoshop application window. If you already have a Photoshop document open, then dragging the texture image onto this open project will add the texture image to a new layer, while dragging the image to the top bar where the open document name tabs are, and dropping it to the right of any open document tabs, will open the texture image in a new document of it’s own.
Once you have the texture loaded into Photoshop, either in your current project document, or in a new document of it’s own, you can simply hold CTRL while clicking on the icon of the texture in the Photoshop LAYERS panel, to quickly create a marquee selection box around the texture image. Then CTRL+C to copy the image, select your project document, and CTRL+V to paste the texture to a new layer.
If you have already added the texture image to your project, making this copy will ensure you have the original texture on it’s own layer that you can return to if you need a clean unmodified copy to work with. Hide this layer and you will now have a backup. Then you can begin using your new texture in your project. Play with Photoshop’s layer properties and see the many ways you can blend the new texture with your project image. Screen, Overlay, and Multiply are generally the most useful, while Soft Light & Hard Light are also useful.
It’s one of the fastest & easiest ways to select a layer you have already cut or modified. While the Magic Wand tool is great and all, it is generally iffy due to it’s tolerance settings when you need a perfect layer selection. The CTRL + Click Layer Thumbnail trick is precise.
We hope this has helped some people to understand how to download textures into Photoshop. It’s really much more simple than it seems.