Weekly Photo and Travel Theme Challenges: Textured And Endearing
I’m actually a bit late with my post this week! It’s been a busy one. I very nearly used this image for last week’s Travel Theme: Simplify, as the photo was taken in a busy park with numerous distractions in the background that I’d needed to eliminate. I decided to do this using several textured masking layers in Photoshop, to draw the viewers focus back to the endearing portrait of the girl with her young puppy.
You can create your own textures to use in this way simply by photographing interesting textured scenes or objects. Rocks, fabrics, bricks and handmade paper are all great for this! There are a number of websites offering free texture downloads for personal and commercial use and right here on WordPress you can visit Public Domain Textures for a wide selection to choose from. Thank you to Leanne Cole for introducing me to the blog, for which she is a regular contributor!
Taking One Day At A Time 
What a strong vibrant portrait and such an endearing little dog 🙂
Thank you 🙂 She was lovely too with that rich auburn hair!
Textures used as a background can be very cleverly applied, but sometimes I find they are overdone so the actual subject of the photo is lost. This isn’t the case here as you have used it to draw attention to the subject. Nothing more endearing than a child and a puppy (unless a child and a kitten 😉 ) – this little girl has gorgeous red hair and what a smile!
Thanks so much Jude!! It can be hard to get the balance right. She was gorgeous, her whole face smiled 😀 I love photographing redheads. Classical beauties. The pre-Raphaelites painted a lot of redheads which is where I think I get my love of the colouring and style from.
I was trying to think of the pre-Raphaelites, but was having a senior moment 😉 Definitely what I was thinking of!
Yay! I did my job then 🙂
Beautiful photo, and excellent application of texture filters/treatment. So easy to overdo these things and lose the true focus of the photo.
Thank you 🙂 I like using them with masking but I’ve seen it done a lot where effects are applied to the whole image and it actually seems to flatten them! I love experimenting to see what does and doesn’t work. Best way to learn I think!
Lovely, Sarah! She has such a sweet smile, and you captured it. 🙂 Thanks for the texture link. will give a try.
Thanks Amy 🙂 Have fun experimenting with the textures! Try using different blending styles and opacity in the layers along with masking tools.
Fantastic!! 🙂
Thank you Steve 🙂
A wonderful portrait and a very nice touch with the texture; as already said above, it isn’t noticeable unless you are told how it was done.
Thanks Robin 🙂 I think it’s important to try to keep the image as natural as possible when using textures or other backgrounds with portraits! Enhanced but not overpowered.