Textured photo blends seem to be all the rage lately in creative digital photography. And...so, so easy with our Photo Art Blends, which we've been creating since 2008. Our Photo Art Blends were developed to help you replicate the look of  handmade photo transfers without the mess, chemicals, or time! Photo Art Blends 2 also includes unique blends mimicking folded notebook paper, wood grain, and other distressed textures.

Fyi...All of our products are for personal use, but we offer a Limited Professional Use License Option for photographers/scrappers-for-hire to use our products in their business. Simply select the Professional Use License Option for each product on its product page when ordering (license is an additional $4-$10 one-time fee for each download pak). Note that this license is not available for digital designers to use our products in their designs for resale.

Instructions for using Photo Art Blends 1

Follow these simple steps with your image editor (one that has layer blend modes - Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, Paint Shop Pro):

Open Adobe Photoshop Elements

Open photo (File>Open>browse system for photo>Open)

Open Naturals Paper or Photo Art Blend. Sample used was 08 PhotoBlend1 from Nature's Sketchbook Photo Art Blends 1

Rotate to correct orientation, if needed (Image>Rotate)

Drag Photo Art Blend (or paper) on top of photo layer. Re-size image or photo art blend to desired size. In my case, image was larger than the 8x10 Photo Art Blend so I cropped to the size of the 8x10 by selecting that layer and choosing Image>Crop. Note...Because the blends are textures and do not have fine details, it is OK to increase their size by up to 50% and still have great print quality.

Adjust layer blend mode of paper layer to get desired effect. Overlay or soft light are usually my favorite to give a pop in color and texture. In this sample to achieve a cross processed effect I used Overlay.

Select soft eraser brush at about 30% percent opacity and gently erase paper texture over skin or other areas you don't want as much (or any) texture. In Photoshop, I recommend using a layer mask on the photo art blend and paint black over areas where you want less texture. This is the same as erasing, however is non-destructible (as you undo by painting white over the black).

I also used the included Photo Mask for this piece to retain the watercolor paper texture edges. See our tutorial on our blog for details on how to use them.

Save as layered PSD if you want to retain layer for future editing. Save as full-size JPG to use on layout or to print at photo lab.

Voila! Instant gorgeous photo transfer without the time, mess, or cost.

Another alternative is to place the photo layer above the textured paper layer, as in the sample above. You can experiment with duplicate layers of the photo, each having their own layer blend mode and adjust the opacity of each until you get the effect you're going for. For this particular example, I used 12 PhotoBlend1 and then set the first photo layer to Overlay at 100% and the top photo layer to Normal at 20% opacity. Adding this extra layer at Normal brings back more of the image and lessens the canvas texture. Too fun!!!

Also notice that I simply erased some of the photo edges rather than use the included clipping mask since the photo was on top of the blend instead of beneath it.

More samples using Nature's Sketchbook Photo Art Blends 1

Using 01 PhotoBlend1 with Soft Light Layer Blend Mode at 66% opacity.
 

Notice also in the Layer Palette that I did a quick selection of the Photo Blend's edge and pasted it (Ctrl J or Cmd J on a Mac) above the original photo blend layer to allow more of the awesome photo transfer edge to show (76% opacity), as Soft Light blend mode takes away some of the color. I then added some fun Scrap.Words, playing with the color and blend modes as well. Too fun!

Using 12 PhotoBlend1 with Overlay Layer Blend Mode. Use '10 11 12 Clipping Mask' to preserve photo transfer edges, by clipping photo to mask shape. See our Clipping Mask tutorial here. Photo Blend was also re-colored, adjusting Hue to -55 and Saturation to -40 (Ctrl U or Cmd U on a Mac for Hue/Saturation dialog).

In this piece, as well, I did a selection of the edge and pasted it (Ctrl J or Cmd J on a Mac) on the top layer to allow more of the edge texture to show through, as Overlay blend mode takes away some of the texture on white. The bottom layer is a duplicate of the original Photo Blend, picking up the warm browns when combined with the plum. Simply Love 2 Scrap.Words add a finishing touch. There are so many ways to play!

Using 05 PhotoBlend1 with Soft Light Layer Blend Mode. Use '05 06 Clipping Mask' to preserve photo transfer edges, by clipping photo to mask shape. See our Clipping Mask tutorial here.

Using 15 PhotoBlend1 with Multiply Layer Blend Mode. Use '14 15 Clipping Mask' to preserve photo transfer edges, by clipping photo to mask shape. See our Clipping Mask tutorial here. Erase texture over skin.

Similarly, using 07 PhotoBlend1 with Hard Light Layer Blend Mode at 82% opacity. Duplicate photo art blend and erase center, leaving edge. Keep set to Normal Blend Mode. Use '07 08 09 Clipping Mask' to preserve photo transfer edges, by clipping photo to mask shape. See our Clipping Mask tutorial here.

Using 01 PhotoBlend1 with Soft Light Layer Blend Mode

Using 05 PhotoBlend1 with Soft Light Layer Blend Mode (also transformed to 4x6 aspect ratio)

Using 04 PhotoBlend1 with Soft Light Layer Blend Mode

Using 11 PhotoBlend1 (rotated 90 degrees right)  with Hard Light Light Layer Blend Mode

I hope you'll agree that playing with these is quite addictive! Experiment with different blends at different settings on an image to see which you like best for that particular shot!

See our Blog and Newsletter for more tutorials and inspiration.