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THIS WEEK'S POWERTIP
Creating interesting textures from scrap pictures
By David Gewirtz
Every so often, I want a text to use as a backdrop for some project. Here at ZATZ, I'll often need a background for our cover images on the home pages of the magazines. While you could buy texture CDs from a variety of vendors, sometimes it's fun to create your own out of your own pictures and a few simple filters.
Here's an example. Figure A shows a picture I took of my XBox.
FIGURE A
You're looking at my well-worn XBox. Click picture for a larger image.
Now, the reason I took the picture is simple. The camera was in my hand and I wanted to point it at something. It's not exactly art, but it was on my hard disk when I went looking for textures.
Since I often take pictures at pretty high resolution (and I have a 6 megapixel camera), I often find textures buried in the images I take. For example, if we go to full resolution on the XBox photo, as shown in Figure B, you'll notice some nice black stippling that might make a good texture.
FIGURE B
Here's some good texture material. Click picture for a larger image.
In fact, you can see it better when I copy a rectangle from a clear space, as shown in Figure C.
FIGURE C
A simple rectangular selection gives us a nice texture. Click picture for a larger image.
But there's a lot more you can do with this. Play around with your filters. I found that by using the colored pencil filter, shown in Figure D, I was able to create a very interesting texture.
FIGURE D
Who knew that the colored pencil could create nice textures? Click picture for a larger image.
To be clear, I found this by simply accepting the defaults. The resultant texture is shown in Figure E.
FIGURE E
A unique texture can be derived from your photo collection. Click picture for a larger image.
When you look at this texture, you'd never know it's from a picture of my XBox. It's a great texture, too!
For more than 20 years, David Gewirtz, the author of Where Have All The Emails Gone? and The Flexible Enterprise, has analyzed current, historical, and emerging issues relating to technology, competitiveness, and policy. David is the Editor-in-Chief of the ZATZ magazines, is the Cyberterrorism Advisor for the International Association for Counterterrorism and Security Professionals, and is a member of the instructional faculty at the University of California, Berkeley extension. He can be reached at david@zatz.com.
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