Hello all!
For a few days now I've been trying to think of a way to create realistically contoured textures, e.g., flowing hair or a cloth texture wrapped around a shape (as in clothing).
Of course, the ideal solutions are 1) rendering with a 3D program and 2) very careful painting. However, I was wondering if there was another way that it could be done utilizing Photoshop's tools. I'm a pretty experienced user and my daughter asked me if there was a way to do that the other day (she uses Photoshop to color in scanned hand drawings and is very interested in learning everything she can). Usually I've been able to guide her through a how-to, but this one threw me for a loop.
Techniques I've tried (implied in all of this is that the original texture is made already-using the Texturizer filter as an example):
1) Liquify tool (but ends up smearing everything around more than anything)
2) Dodging and burning to add light (but then the texture stays 2D)
3) Displacement maps (did Google several tutorials but got so-so results, the main problem is that you don't seem to have to much ultimate control on the final result, it tends to really distort the texture as the shape severely curves away from you)
So, before throwing my hands up I thought I'd toss it out to my fellow Photoshop friends...any ideas?
By the way, I am absolutely not against some careful painting nor am I looking for the magic wrap-a-texture-to-a-contour filter (I know it's not that simple)-just wondering if someone has any insight on some more powerful Photoshop functionality that will enable one to accomplish this.
I'm holding out hope for Displacement Maps-if anyone knows of some super in-depth tutorials out there, please share! I will of course continue the search myself and share my results with the crew.
Thanks all! [righton]
Realistically contoured 3D textures 
Linear Mode
