Application:
Adobe Photoshop CC 2015
What you'll learn:
How to create textures that are tileable and seamless.
Difficulty:
Beginner - Intermediate
Estimated time:
20-30 minutes

I'll be using a stone texture as an example. This particular type of stone was requested by the client to be used on the exterior of a townhome building that we designed for them. In order to render the building with the proper materials, I had to take the original image of the stone (below) and make it seamless.


Original image from the client

The first thing you should ask yourself is if the texture is already tileable. You can test this easily by going to
Filter > Other > Offset
. This will essentially take the edges and "wrap them around the image" so to speak.


Offset settings


Result of the offset




This is how your image would appear stacked vertically and horizontally on itself. Not good!

The next step is the longest process, clone stamping the image. If you're not familiar with this tool, it's the stamp icon in your toolbar (the keyboard shortcut is "s"). The goal is to remove the "seams" where the sharp lines appear. With this tool, you can "borrow" edges of other stones to make the seams disappear. This process can be quite tricky, but if you're clever you should have no problems. I've circled the parts that I worked on, one stone at a time below.


First few stones finished


Second pass of stones finished

For the rest, I performed another offset to determine what lines were still left to be fixed. I proceeded to stamp them until i was satisfied with the outcome and ended up with this:


Another offset, and a little more cloning

This looks pretty good. I decided to offset it one more time to clean up any lines that may still be harsh. After the offset and the final cleaning, here's what I ended up with:


Final result.

Now no matter how I offset the image, it will always appear seamless. If you don't believe me, try it yourself! Download the image above and offset it a few times to see if you can find any seams.

To create a pattern with your texture, you would go to
Edit > Define Pattern
. Name it something recognizable and open a new canvas.

With your pattern defined, select the Paint Bucket tool (G). At the top of your toolbar, change the fill settings from "Foreground" to "Pattern". I chose to tick the "All Layers" checkbox, I can pattern fill on a new layer and still stay inside the lines.


Alternatively, you can use the pattern overlay effect to set the scale of the bucket fill, and refine other settings until your happy with your pattern.



› See More: How to quickly create seamless textures in Photoshop CC