A tiled texture from a photo

[JF Slater]

Not wonderful, but it's the technique I was after! I have been wanting to make these for so long, and now I've found out how, I hope no-one minds if I share it here. These is my first tutorial here so please be gentle [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_eek.gif[/img]

I'll do this over a few messages.

First, place a frame on the scanner bed. I used the side of a cake tin with removable base. Fill with pasta and scan. Adjust highlights, shadows and midtones for the best effect, then make a note of the settings. Scan and import into XaraX. Create an unfilled square in XaraX, I used 512pix x 512pix which worked well. Place this over your bitmap until you like what's inside it. Remove line width, set view quality to normal and create a bitmap copy of the invisible square (mine was at 96 dpi - this is set in Utilities> Options> View... Bitmaps, DPI when auto-generated), true colour, no alpha. Now create an invisible square with each side half the original, thus mine was 256 x 256. Align to each corner in turn, making a bitmap copy of each, 4 in total. Then drag the squares into the opposite corners. The centre of the large square is now at the edges, so you can work on the ugly joins you would get if you tiled your original square. Line up the squares using guides, grid, align, and/ or zooming in close.

[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

[Egg Bramhill]

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

[Egg Bramhill]

The download time wasn't a great problem. I love your idea of using a cake tin...me, I'd just pour it all over the scanner, I'm not that tidy!
Egg

[JF Slater]

Now select the four bitmaps and create a bitmap copy (no alpha). Set a large page size and view the bitmap copy as a page background (Select it in the bitmap gallery and choose background at the top). This will highlight any ugly repeats. Your aim is to avoid any one area being strikingly different from the rest, or it will be too obvious once the pattern repeats. I've done a quick repair by pasting a shape over the area. You must repeat it at both sides, aligning the shapes and checking they overlap the edge in the same place. I used guides and lined up one very bright pixel on each shape. Make a bitmap copy of just the four squares, and the repair will appear in the copy. Finally, I applied some filter magic in the shape of the diamonds filter from this page:
http://www.btinternet.com/~cateran/simple
(or http://www.btinternet.co.uk/~cateran/simple)
Some of these fantastic simple filters will create seamless patterns from your drawings, but the more complicated method above gives you full control.

[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

[JF Slater]

Hahaha! The background is our supper!

Really I just picked pasta 'cos it would fit on the scanner. I want to make realistic (fun) fills to use in Xara, leaves for trees, bricks for buildings, that kind of thing. I'm an amateur and my daughter is always challenging me to make unusual invites!

I like to see tiles used as stationery backgrounds with a transparent text frame over them too. Finally, several programs like Painter, PSP and Expression can use textured page backgrounds, and I want to experiment with those as well. Maybe not pasta though!

But sorry, no finished artwork to show. I've just seen so many quality photo-realistic fills used in advertising... and I could not rest until I knew how they did it!

Jessica

[gwpriester]

That is awesome.

You could also fill in the blank areas with a rectangle the same color but a bit deeper.

Really cool.

What are you going to do with this background?

Gary

Gary Priester

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XaraXone

[roman]

Thumbs up, Jessica.

[dalel]

I haven't had the time to analyze your tutorial, but the result is awesome!

I can already imagine several great uses for this technique.

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