Hi everybody.
I see that a lot of photographers use some kind of textures to blend with photos for wedding and art photography. It looks very interesting sometimes. I have two questions:
1. Do you know any good source for this kind of actions. I only know about RedLeafStudios, they have beautiful vintage textures. Are there any others?
2. What are the steps in PC to blend my own textures with photos, it sounds more logical to make pictures of any texture I like (canvas etc)?
Thank you!

I don't own them, but Jesh de Rox has some insanely awesome textures.

The Sallee's offer some grungy textures http://www.salleephotography.com/

gabe from perspectiveye has some great ones. and affordable. or you could shoot your own. but who has time?!

yeppers. i second that. obviously. haha! they are GREAT.

I use my own... I have a pretty extensive collection of them, actually. Just about every time I do a shoot or go somewhere with my camera I photograph at least a couple of textures. I also spent about 2 hours shooting textures around my back yard one day. As far as using them, add the texture layer on top of your photo, set the blend mode in the layers palette to overlay or soft light, depending on how heavy you want it, add a layer mask to the texture layer and paint back in any spots you want to lighten it on (like faces, etc.). I usually paint back in the faces and some parts of the body/clothing a little bit but not so much that there is NO texture on them because that usually looks strange. Then just adjust the opacity of the texture layer to taste. Layering more than one texture is very nice too.

I bought those and their actions at the tour they had this year... I haven't been able to get the textures to work well with any of my shots - I need to play around more to see what I am doing wrong...

Thank you everybody.
Textures from Jesh de Rox and from Perspectiveye are great.
And this guy uses textures in fantastic way - www.regnierphotography.com . Actually, this is how I got interested in textures, after seeing his pictures.
But, I am surprised there are not much more textures for sale out there, these are really popular now.

i've only paid for a few, i got some great ones from redleaf.

+1

I've found that my most successful textures are ones that I photographed and archived for myself.
They just seem to organically work better with my own style.
In the span of a couple of hours on a free morning, I can usually come up with 10-15 killer textures that will keep me happy for a few months!

I vote for Parker Pfister's

I usually just use my own too. I like to shoot some when I am out and doing other things if i see something cool. Scanning in old papers and interesting fabrics works too.

kate

Milan, Greta & Amber-
Thank you - you've inspired me to get off my butt and FINALLY package up my textures to sell them! I have a ridiculous amount of textures clogging up my external drive and just decided to sell some of them! Of course, there is an OSP discount... starting a new thread....

Beginner's set : Light Touch Textures - is a great set to begin to learn to apply textures if you've not tried it. It's a texture set that won't break the bank - but might break you into a new paradigm of creative retouching. Just remember that applying them without applying your heart artistic instinct isn't going to help your image any further.

BTW - Here's three retouching articles:

What does a texture do for an image?

Texturized photograph : before expressive retouching and after

Understanding the suggestive power of darkness

I've found lots of good free textures at: urbandirty.com

i love gabe from perspective eyes and jesh de roxs, however alot are easy to get free online, but those 2 sets where worth paying for.

Gabe´s are reasonable priced and give very good value for money. My vote for perspectiveye.