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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]
Not sure I would Displace. Can be done, but would take some serious work.
If you want a taste, read through Power Distort.
The rest is 'super in-depth' if you seriusly want to learn Displace.
See Table of Contents for 30+ pages of brain-frying goodness.
Very cool! I need to take the time to really dive into the tutorial (looks intense!), but it seems like it's a good possibility...
I was doing some searching and found this site, lots of nice tutorials here: http://div.dyndns.org/EK/tutorial/
I have read the "Power Distort" tutorial in the tutorial forum here, and it seems a bit cryptic to me. After going to the "Table of Contents" link above, NOW I uderstand it a LOT more!! Thank you for the link!! [righton]
I think that you can accomplish a lot of the things you want to do by using the pen tool. I made this image a few months ago.
Using the pen tool I created the outline, the shadows and the highlights. all parts on seperate layers with different blending modes. The same technique was used to make the cloth in this image. http://mats.proventek.net/pixel/photoshop/thing-ut.jpg
I have tried to make some 3D images where cloth is drapped around objects but I haven't had the time to complete any images...yet.
Please post any images you make so that we all can learn [righton]
Realistically contoured 3D textures 
Linear Mode
