Wood Tutorial : Photoshop 7

Jan22nd
2008
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The first Photoshop tutorial I’ve written. it was in response to some wood grain I made for a signature contest over on MTG Salvation. The contest topic was “Music” that week and I chose the great little band The Weary Boys. You can see a larger example here.

This tutorial was made using Photoshop 7. You should be able to make it with any version of Photoshop and possibly Gimp and Paint Shop Pro (depending on the filters they have). With that in mind, in about 20 minutes, you should have some fairly nice wood grain made. Every step is a matter of preference, but I’ll show all the settings I used.

Step 1

Start off by making a new canvas 500px x 500px. Fill it with a nice background color (#8E4E22). Create a new layer and using the rectangular marquee tool, start making vertical seletions. Fill those selections with a darker color (#4A311D).

Step 2: Multiple distortions

Apply Filter > Distort > Wave

Apply Fiter > Distort > Shear

Apply Fiter > Distort > Pinch

Apply Fiter > Distort > Twirl

Step 3: A slight clean-up

What you come out with is a pretty random and simple wood grain effect. I then copy the grain layer and apply a slight blur to it to help smooth it out a little.

Step 4: Making it messy

For the next several steps I use the grunge brushes from veredgf.fredfarm.com. Make a new layer. Using several different brushes at varying opacities and shades of browns, reds and oranges, I end up with this:

Step 5: Adding some color

Make a new layer. Set your colors to #A02A28 and #C46525 and Filter > Render > Clouds.

Now set this layer’s blend mode to Saturation

Now set your messy layer’s blend mode to Multiply and set it’s opacity to 70%.

Now set your wood grain layer to a blend mode of Color Burn.

That does it. A nice wood grain effect.

Step 6: Slice and Dice

Using the Edit > Transform > Distort, twist up your grain layer some, basically messing up the grain more. Make a retangular selection and Copy Merged (Shift + Ctrl + C). Make a new canvas (Ctrl + N) and paste the selction into it (Ctrl + V). Go back to your grain and twist it some more and repeat this process several times.

Create a new 500px x 500px canvas. Drag all your slices into it and arrange them edge to edge. Flip some around and rotate them to make it appear it’s not the same 4 slices.

Step 7: Laminating and Distressing

Now we select one of the layers. Then create a new layer for the selection. Apply a 3px Black stroke to the inside. Using one of the brushes (make it’s size very small) just dab around the edges and corners.

Now do the same thing with each slice you made and you will end up with some resembling this:

Now we add a little color to the individual slices to make them all look a little different tone wise. Select one of the slice. Make a new layer. Using various shades of reds, brown and oranges and several different brushes, make a little mess.

Now set the layer to Color Burn (you might have to play with the blending mode depending on the colors you brushed on).

Repeat this process with each slice. Mix up the brushes and colors used. Play with different blend modes and opacities.

Step 8: Bringing it all together

My fial result ended up being a little to dark for my tastes and a few of the pieces stuck out too much. To remedy this I used a typical technique used in many traditional mediums, the wash. I made a new layer and set my colors to #E2B191 and #E2A15D. Filter > Render > Clouds and set the layer’s blend mode to Soft Light and a 50% opacity.

What this did was not only lighten the whole thing a little, but gave all the slices a touch of all the similar color.

Conclusion

Since everything here is just playing with settings of multiple filters, blends, colors and brushes, making wood is really free form. That’s why it really doesn’t take too long to make it either. No stressing for pixel perfection.