So your focus isn’t tack sharp, but you have a beautiful picture other than that? It happens to me way too often! Adding a texture is a creative way to improve your picture and follow one of the latest photo processing styles at the same time.
Textures are usually JPEGs that you bring into your blurry image as a new layer. Using them make the lack of focus less important, or even effective.
You can creatively mask out the texture on areas where it isn’t necessary, like faces. Also, adjust the opacity of the layer and experiment with blending modes to get just the right effect.
Free textures can be found in lots of places on the internet. I like textures that have vignettes added already. Some of my favorites sources of free textures are:
- CoffeeShop Free Photoshop Actions
- Flickr (search for “Free Textures” and you’ll come up with a jillion)
- CG Textures
Make sure you check out the texture creator’s guidelines. Some people like to be given credit whenever you use their texture, others don’t want it used if you will be selling an image.
