A tiled texture from a photo

[JF Slater]

...only came in after I'd spent forever trying to pile up the pasta- it kept rolling off and didn't have the depth I wanted.

I forgot to rave about the weird tileable textures you can get from the simple filters.

You can see some examples here

Jessica

[Egg Bramhill]

Jessica, You can easily create the same effect in XaraX. I've created a tutorial HERE
Egg

[JF Slater]

I like that! Especially as you can use bevels. The aligning then 45 degree rotation is a great trick.

The filters are very quick and easy and they work in Xara, but the results aren't as predictable as your method.

I've been playing with textured paper scans and my pasta technique works there too. Even easier as you simply paste ovals or rounded rectangles with feathered edges and a fill taken from the scanned picture.

I've just discovered that if you right-click with the fill tool on a shape filled with a bitmap, you can then set the DPI which makes it a lot easier to keep the scale right for patching over the joins.

Jess