Texturing Tutorial (Photoshop CS2)
- Tiling Camouflage Pattern - by Anton “jintz” Wiegert

1. Create a new document, 1024 by 1024 pixels in size.
   
   
2. Hit D on your keyboard to select the default colors (white and black) as your fore- and background colors.
   
   
3. Render random grayscale clouds (Filter > Render > Clouds) at the bottom layer.
   
   
   
   
4. Create a Levels layer on top of it, and drag the slider for the minimum Input Level to adjust the size of the noise “islands”.
   
   
   
   
5. Create a Brightness/Contrast layer on top of everything else, and max out the sliders for both the Brightness and the Contrast. This will turn the pattern into black and white instead of grayscale.
   
   
   
   
6. Create a new document using the Duplicate feature (Image > Duplicate) and check the box for “Duplicate Merged Layers Only”. Keep the first document open in the background because you will come back to it in a while.
   
   With the new document active, you have 2 options; do you want a camouflage pattern that’s classic (smooth) or digital (pixelated)? In step 8 you will chose one of them, but just before that a pro-active step.
   
   
7. Unfortunately many of Photoshop’s filters won’t wrap around the edges of a document, clipping will occur that will stop your texture from tiling. This is a workaround as the Stamp filter does not tile or wrap on its own:
   
   
• Hit Ctrl-A to select everything.
  
  
• Select Define Pattern in the Edit menu.
  
  
• Rescale the canvas with (Image > Canvas Size), and set its new width and height to be 300 percent.
  
  
• Select Fill in the Edit menu, using the pattern you just created.
  
  
8. Now pick one of the two pattern types you want:
   
   Classic Pattern: Use the Stamp filter (Filter > Sketch > Stamp) and set the Light/Dark Balance to 10, and the Smoothness to 30.
   
   Or Digital Pattern: Use the Mosaic filter (Filter > Pixelate > Mosaic) with a Cell Size of 16.
   
   If you want your texture to tile automatically, and you do, use a Cell Size that you can use to divide the document width with. The current document is 1024 wide, so 16 is a good choice as 1024/16 returns a whole number (an integer). 17 would not work as 1024/17 returns a decimal number.
   
   Then maximize the contrast to get rid of the grayscale tones that the Mosaic function added. Use the menu Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast, with Contrast set to +100. Don’t touch the Brightness slider this time.
   
   
9. Scale the canvas back down to 1024 x 1024 pixels (Image > Canvas Size).
   
   You will end up with either one of the following:
   
   
10. Create 3 Solid Color layers, and set their color values to the colors you want in your final camouflage pattern. Then add a Layer Mask to the top layer, and paste the black and white cow skin pattern you just created into it.
    
    To paste an image you have in the clipboard memory into a layer’s mask is easier said than done however.
    
    Copy the pattern (Ctrl-A then Ctrl-C), then swap from the Layers tab to the Channels tab.
    
    Make the mask layer active (by selecting it, and turning its visibility/eye icon on, and by turning off the visibility/eye icon for the RGB channel).
    
    
    
    Then slam Ctrl-V to paste it inside the mask.
    
    
11. Go back to your previous document and render a new cloud (Filter > Render > Clouds) at the bottom layer, to quickly create a new random pattern that you can use as the Layer Mask in the middle layer.
    
    
    Now you can easily tweak the colors of your camouflage, by just editing the individual Solid Color layers, and/or by changing the masks, and/or by inverting the masks, and/or by swapping place of the two layers that have masks.
    
    
12. If you chose the digital pattern your masks will have quite sharp angles in them, which might look a bit unreal. To get rid of it just select each Layer Mask one by one, and run the Stamp filter on them, but this time only with a Smoothness of 3.
    
    
13. At this stage, the camouflage pattern is completed, and will automatically be tiling in all directions.
    
    If you want to add a final touch, create a new layer on top of it all, fill it with medium grey (RGB 128, 128,128) using your Paint Bucket tool. Then use the Texturizer filter (Filter > Texture > Texturizer), with the Canvas pattern as Texture (or load your own), set the Scaling to 100 % and Relief to 10, with Light coming from the Top Left.
    
    Change the mode of the Layer to Overlay, and the Opacity to 30 %.
    
    Your final texture should look something like this: