High Resolution Textures » Inspiration

Feature: DPS article with 10 tips for shooting graphic textures

Vincent — Tue, 05 May 2009 08:10:48 +0000

Digital Photography School, one of the biggest blogs about photography, has a great article with 10 tips for shooting graphic textures. This is a must read for all aspiring texture photographers, if they want to find out, how they can achieve better results.

Visit the article here!

Earlier, I also wrote 2 articles about how to take your textures to the next level and you can find them here:

Now grab your camera and start trying out some of these techniques. Feel free to post your results in the comments!

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High resolution texture round-up for february

Vincent — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 11:40:22 +0000

Over the last 2-3 weeks, lots of different articles about and collections with various high resolution textures have been published all over the design community. In this post, I would like to present the most important ones, in order to make sure that you don’t miss any of the action. So let’s get right to it:

Launch of Seamlesstextures.net

Fellow texture blogger Caleb Kimbrough of LostandTaken.com has launched a new site, which entirely focuses on seamless textures, hence the name seamlesstextures.net. If you are looking for textures, which can right away be used for tiled (website) graphics, seamlesstextures.net is the place to go!

Ultimate Guide for Creating High Quality Textures

Caleb also wrote a great tutorial for DesignM.ag on how to create high quality textures and goes into great detail with regards to equipment, lighting, sharpness and post-processing. Check out the tutorial here!

30 free cardboard textures (DesignM.ag)

DesignM.ag published a nice collection of 30 free hi-res cardboard textures. This post includes some of my textures, which I offered last week, but next to that, you can find a few other gems. Check out the collection here!

100 beautiful free textures (Smashing Magazine)

At the beginning of this month, Smashing Magazine offered a huge collection of hi-res texture images, including some categories, which are otherwise not so easy to find: wool, leather, denim, water or glass. Explore the entire collection here.

50 rusted metal textures (Webdesigner Depot)

What would be a texture round-up without the obligatory rust or grunge textures? One of the most popular texture categories currently is rusted metal, and Webdesigner Depot published a brilliant collection featuring some of the most colorful rust textures, I have come across. This is certainly a bookmark-worthy article, so go check it out here!

As you can see, february was a great month for all texture lovers. In case I missed one or more essential resources, please let me know in the comments and I will add it to this article. Now make your internet providers happy by downloading as many textures as possible!

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A new experiment: applying the HDR technique to textures

Vincent — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 21:37:51 +0000

Lately, I have been a little obsessed with HDR photography. Especially the work of Trey Ratcliff is breathtaking and he also has a very good tutorial on his blog “Stuck in Customs”, where he covers the ins and outs of the HDR technique. Inspired by all this, I thought that I could try and apply this special technique to my textures. And this is what came out of it – my first HDR beach sand texture. I hope you like it. Please let me know, what you think of this little experiment, so I can decide, whether it is worth to continue in that direction.

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Great locations for taking texture photographs

Vincent — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 11:57:15 +0000

Today, I would like to share a few locations, which I think are great for texture photography.

Natural textures

Picture taken by g.naharro

From personal experience, the most productive photography sessions I had so far, took place in the forest. Most of the times, you have a great variety of bark due to the diversity of the trees. Next to that, if you are in a humid area, there is a great chance of finding lots of moss and fern. Depending on where you are, you might find plenty of rocks and stones, too. And don’t forget the surface you are walking on – the ground itself can be used for some pretty textures, especially in combination with tree roots. Just try it!

Artificial textures

Picture taken by mikk

The kinds of textures that are harder to find compared to natural ones, are rust, metal or plastic. In order to find these, you should try to locate industrialized areas, preferably abandoned ones, because then you probably don’t have to deal with closed gates and it should be easier to get inside the buildings as well. I haven’t been near one lately, but I guess a big harbor, like the one in Hamburg depicted above, can be a great place for shooting textures as well. Containers, ships and cranes, all of them provide a huge variety of metal and rust surfaces.

If you have any ideas or suggestions, feel free to post them in the comments.

In the near future, I will write a dedicated post about Urban textures, so stay tuned.

I hope that I could give you some nice ideas and that this article proves to be helpful when you are looking for great locations for texture photographs.

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Please share your designs with the crowd!

Vincent — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 08:31:45 +0000

It’s been almost 2 months now, that I am supplying my readership with all kinds of textures. Apart from Lawrence, who told me that he used one of the textures in one of his wedding photo books for a client, I have no clue what you guys are doing with all the images. However, I would love to see some samples of your work, so if you made something creative and would like to share it with the rest of the crowd, feel free to leave a comment with a link to your piece of work. It would be a shame to see all the textures getting buried on some hard drive! So don’t be shy and get some exposure for your design work!

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Streetart: hrt graffiti pack

Vincent — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 12:04:05 +0000

These pictures probably don’t qualify as normal textures, but I wanted to share this nice streetart anyways. All photos have been taken at the Landbouwbelang, an old warehouse building in Maastricht, which functions as a cultural center and hosts some exhibitions and other art events from time to time. I hope you enjoy these 10 high resolution images.

graffiti pack (.zip file, 33 MB)

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Texture and pattern showcase on Smashing Magazine

Vincent — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 16:09:15 +0000

Famous Smashing Magazine published a huge inspirational post, which showcases loads of websites that use either patterns or textures as a background. And the best thing about it – highresolutiontextures.com has been included in the “wood” category! This is smashing news and such an honor.

Check out the article here!

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Design inspiration: 3 more websites with excellent use of textures

Vincent — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 08:50:03 +0000

In order to mix it up a little, it is time for some more inspiration. The following websites illustrate, how one can achieve beautiful results in web design through the use of textures.

slabovia tv: it has a nice wooden background and contains some concrete and paper textures as well. It is hard to describe, what this website is about, so you have to see for yourself. If you want to kill some time, the Monster pig game can help you with that!

decay of intent: this is the portfolio of Italian freelance graphic designer Alessandro Cammarota. He uses a grunge style concrete background on his website.

brainwash factory: design related blog of German freelance designer Ines Opifanti. I like the fabric background in combination with the well-crafted logo.

In addition to the 3 handpicked websites above, here is a link to a post on designerside.com about 42 websites that make use of wood or grain textures.

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Feature: grunge paper texture tutorial at bittbox.com

Vincent — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 09:31:58 +0000

One of my favorite resource websites bittbox.com has a great tutorial on how to enhance paper textures in order to create a unique grunge paper effect. Head on over to the tutorial. Next to that, the website has a great freebie section with lots of Illustrator and Photoshop brushes and a few more tutorials on how to create you own textures in Photoshop.

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Vintage texture collection at Design Reviver

Vincent — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 13:59:41 +0000

Henry Jones, the man behind Design Reviver posted a nice collection of vintage textures and photoshop brushes. Next to a great freebie section, Design Reviver also has a few tutorials covering different topics of web development.

So what are you waiting for? Head on over to his blog and grab some freebies by clicking here!

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