Photoshop makes real brick walls

Brick walls are a very common material and are very simple to make, even if the novice in Photoshop can use texture filters without any effort. But the effect of this simple method is unsatisfactory. The color of the wall is relatively single, and the texture is very regular, the whole wall is like "freshly baked bread" as clean. Although it is pleasing to the eye, there is always a "picture" feeling. and the natural environment of the brick walls are eroded by wind and rain, how many will be somewhat mottled. Today, we're going to take some kung fu and make a picture of the real brick wall. Before I begin, I would like to remind you that this example is quite a long process, we want to make some fill patterns, and a lot of filter effects, maybe you do a lot of steps can not see the effect, then, please be patient, patience, and adhere to the end-if you want to achieve such a realistic effect.

1. Open Photoshop, create a new document, named Brick Wall, size to 256x256 Pixel, resolution 72 pixel/inch, RGB mode, white background. Put it aside when you've built it.

Then create a pattern document, 52x16 pixel size, resolution, color mode and background ibid, open the ruler tool and set the ruler units to pixels by clicking the "+" in the lower-left corner of the information panel, selecting pixels from various units, or setting the ruler units to pixels from the edit "preset" unit and ruler options. To distinguish it from a white background, set a darker foreground color. The deeper the color, the more obvious the brick seam in the final image, in order to make it clearer, here we set the foreground color to black. Select the Pencil tool and make a symmetrical line in the image with a 1-pixel brush as shown in Figure 01a. Be careful not to close the right and lower ends of the image unless you want to create an entire brick wall. Then, using the edit "define pattern" command, define the image as a pattern, named Brick 1. Closes the document.

Figure 01a
Because you want to match our image, so this pattern size is very small, you can define a larger pattern, but to ensure that the size of the file is even, so that the definition of the pattern used to fill will not appear deviation.

Back to the image brick wall, use the shortcut key Shift+back space to open the Fill dialog box, set the fill to a pattern, and then select from the custom pattern list we just defined the pattern brick 1, blending mode and opacity as the default, fill the background layer. (Figure 01b)

Figure 01b
2. We first make the cement in the brick seam. Copy the background layer and name the replica layer "2". Turn on twist and ripple filters, set Quantity to 35%, small size, slight clutter at the edge of the brick, and then use the color order to increase the contrast, the RGB channel input color level to 0, 216, the gray coefficient is 0.10, and then use the brush stroke and splash filter to add some splash particles to the black area of the image, the spray color radius is 2, the smoothness is 5; After blurring the image with a Gaussian blur filter with a radius of 0.8 pixels, the USM sharpening filter is performed, the number is 500%, the radius is 0.4 pixels, and the threshold value is 0; the layer The blending mode of "2" is set to multiply and merge down into the background so that we get the irregular brick shape. (Figure 02)

Figure 02

3. In the next few steps, we'll make the various selection channels for the image. This is the key part of this article, should be handled with care.

Press CTRL + A, select all images, copy, create a new channel, named A1, paste after the reverse phase treatment, cancel the selection. This is the most important channel in the image, which determines the shape of the final image. (Figure 03a)

Figure 03a

Note: Generally speaking, a more complex image should not be so named for the channel, but this example is special because it is difficult to distinguish such a similar channel image with a short name, so we use this method.

Now let's define a second pattern to fill. Creates a new document with a 2x16 pixel size and a white background. Set the rectangle marquee tool to a fixed size with a width of 2 pixels and a height of 8 pixels, selecting the top half of the image. Reset the swatches, and then deselect the selection after filling the selection with black. Define the image as a pattern, named Brick 2. Close the document, return to the document brick wall, create a new channel, name A2, and fill the channel with the pattern brick 2. (Figure 03b) (Note: This effect can also be created using a halftone pattern filter)

Figure 03b

Add a new document, 52x16 pixel size, white background. Opens the ruler, setting the size of the rectangular marquee to 26x8 pixels, aligns the upper-left corner of the marquee with the upper-left corner of the document, locates the selection, sets the creation of the marquee to add, and adds a fixed-size rectangular marquee to the 8-pixel border from the document and 13 pixels to the left. Correctly, the first part of the second selection should coincide with the latter half of the first selection. Fill the selection with black, deselect (or select All), and define the image as the third pattern of the example--brick 3 (Figure 03c). Close the document and return to the document brick wall, create a new channel, name the A3, and fill it with a pattern brick 3. (Figure 03d)

Figure 03c

4. New channel A4, reset color board, rendering channel with cloud filter. Use the other > High contrast to preserve the filter and set the radius to 14.7 (set according to your image) to remove the discordant colors and make the screen homogeneous. Then use Blur, motion blur, angle 90 degrees, distance to 56 pixels, and then use the color order to eliminate the extra details, set the input color level to 127, 132, the gray coefficient is 0.44 (similar command value varies according to need), then use the image "adjustment" threshold command to simplify the image, set the threshold level to 128; After you load the selection of the channel A3, fill the selection with black and deselect. (Figure 04)

Figure 04

Note: If your image looks different, don't worry, it's the role of a random cloud filter.

5. Now establish a 5th channel, named A5 in turn. First with the cloud filter rendering, then using the motion blur filter, the blur angle is set to 0, the distance is 45 pixels, and the high Contrast filter is used, the radius is 21.1, the input color level is 114,134, the gray coefficient is 0.10, and the selection is A3 after the selected selection is loaded into the channel. (Figure 05)

Figure 05

6. Establish a 6th channel, named A6. Still clouds--high Contrast preserve filters--levels--motion blur filters--Adjust the levels of the process, load the Channel A3 selection, fill the black and deselect. The channel A6 as shown in Figure 06.

Figure 06

Although cloud filters are random, it is best to avoid the A4, A5, A6 these three channels of white pixels together, so that they can be evenly distributed in the image, so that future images will not clear a piece, dark piece of the.

7. Now, select the RGB channel, create a new layer, named "3", fill white. Use the noise command to add a noise particle to the layer, with a quantity of 40, a Gaussian distribution, and a monochrome selection. Using the Threshold command, set the threshold level to 68 to remove most of the miscellaneous points.

Copy Layer 3, rename to Layer "4", reverse-phase processing. Turn on the other > displacement filter, set the vertical displacement to 1 pixels, and set the undefined area to "retrace" (note: The displacement effect here cannot be replaced with the Move tool in conjunction with the direction key). Set the blending mode of layer "4" to filter (that is, screen mode in previous versions). Select Layer "3" to open the Brightness/Contrast dialog box to reduce the brightness of the layer to-100, so that these tiny particles will have stereo effects. The layer "4" is linked to the layer "3" and is flattened. (Figure 07)

Figure 07 Figure 03d

8. Create a new layer on layer "3" named Layer "5". Set the foreground color to RGB (153,153,153), load the selection of the channel A6, and deselect after the fill.

Create a new layer "6" on Layer "5", load the selection of the channel A5, and deselect after filling the selection with the foreground color. Reduce the opacity of layer ' 6 ' to 60%, link layer ' 5 ', ' 3 ' and background layer, and flatten. Convert the merged background layer to layer 0, as shown in Figure 08. This layer will be the tiny pores in the bricks and we'll put them aside for a while.

Figure 08

9. New layer "7", the foreground color is set to RGB (123,46,0) This brick red, background color is set to RGB (49,17,0), with a cloud filter rendering layer. Perform a high contrast filter to set the radius to 13.7 pixels; open the Brightness/Contrast dialog box, brightness to 4, contrast +77, with hue/saturation command coloring, tick color mode, hue, saturation, lightness is set to 20, 70,-59, select Texture > particle filter, The particle type is set to spot, with a strength of 87 and a contrast of 72, so that the image appears as a batik-like abstract pattern, as shown in Figure 09a.

Figure 09a

Next, we add a little noise particle to the image, in the Add Noise dialog box, set the noise quantity to 4%, Gaussian distribution, check monochrome, and then use the rough crayon filter in the art effect filter group to set the line length to 2, the line detail to 19, the texture type to sandstone, the zoom to 52%, and the highlight to 7, Light direction, then use the reverse-phase command, and then use hue/saturation command to adjust the color of the screen, set the hue to-180, saturation of +2, lightness is-27. In this way, the image will become a very familiar mix of building materials. (Figure 09b)

Figure 09b

Here, you can also use other types of art effect filters to replace the rough crayon we use, the picture is not the same, the key is to try, different new combinations will bring the fresh effect of the previous never seen.

10. New layer "8", set foreground color to RGB (102,51,0), background color is very approximate rgb (102,12,0), again with cloud filter render layer. Set the layer blending mode to strong light, reduce opacity to 80%, and link the layer "7" and "8" together. Use hue/saturation command to dim the image color, hue, saturation, lightness, respectively, set to -2,-35,-10; (Figure 10a)

Figure 10a

Below we begin to adjust the image color with each channel range: first load the channel A6 selection, open the Hue/Saturation dialog box, hue, saturation, lightness is set to +3, +29, +9, without canceling the selection, directly load the channel A5 of the selection, hue, saturation, lightness respectively set to +4,+11,+ 8, and the above slightly different; finally load the channel A4, the hue, saturation, lightness is set to +8,-40,-4, cancel the selection. (Figure 10b)

Figure 10b

11. Now the picture is still relatively single, we also need to follow the method just now to add a channel. Go to the channel panel, then create a new channel, named A7, with a black and white cloud filter to render the channel, Set high contrast to keep the filter radius of 4.7, implement, adjust the color, enhance the image contrast, and then use the motion blur filter blur the image, the angle is 90 degrees, the distance is 13; load channel A2 selection, open displacement filter, set horizontal displacement to 78, undefined area for retrace, deselect. (Figure 11a)

Figure 11a