We’ve got another great resource for you – a freely-available collection of custom Photoshop textures to help set your work apart… This exclusive set of 29 different handcrafted textures has been released by War Unicorn Media at no cost and is 100% royalty-free. This collection comes complete with an 18-page guide (available online or as a downloadable PDF), filled with tips and tricks on how to best use textures in your Photoshop workflow, as well as how to create your own!
Textures are super-easy to apply and use in Photoshop. Just load the texture into a new layer above your composition, and then set its Blending Mode and Opacity for how you want it to impact the photograph or image underneath. More details and ideas are given in the short tutorial video included below.
Here is James Rodel’s introduction from the accompanying guide, which is packed with examples and entitled, “Textures, the Universe, and You“:
Textures, They’re Everywhere
One of my favorite techniques when creating compositions is the ability to give a composition a “textured window” – a portal – that introduces someone looking at my artwork into my world. I also tend to use textures with color as a basis for compositions. Textures can also be used to unify seemingly disparate elements in a composition.
They can be subtle or they can be dramatic. Photoshop not only makes this process easy but also fun to explore your creativity.
This guide is a look into how I use textures in my workflow. Hopefully, you’ll pick up something new or feel inspired to make your own textures. These tips assume you know the basics of Photoshop – namely, the use of layers and blending modes.
Let’s go!
So here it is – the “never-before-seen, exclusive collection of one-of-a-kind textures for you to use, royalty-free, ad infinitum, ad perpetuam, pro gratis, forever.” The textures pack can be used with any version of Photoshop (or even with Photoshop Elements), and you’ll find the download links for both the tutorial guide and the texture collection here:
Included in the Warunicorn Collection are high-resolution textures for Parchment Paper, Coffee Filters, Construction Paper, Tea Filters, Facial Tissue, Contractor’s Paper, Ice, Paperboard, and more.
If you don’t yet have the latest Photoshop desktop software, just download a free working trial for either Windows or macOS (or try the whole Creative Cloud) – then install, run, and start texturizing your images and artwork…
And to continue learning, don’t miss dozens more free books for many Adobe products, covering recent versions of all major applications.
How to Work Creatively with Photoshop Textures, in Under Three Minutes:
From: Adobe Photoshop Essential Training: Photography by Julieanne Kost at Lynda.com
Download More Free Textures!
Russell Brown’s Paper Textures Pro add-on is another terrific source of textures that’s been around for a while, but is still as awesome as when it first came out… This free extension adds a brand new panel to Photoshop, giving you 54 cool new creative textures to work and play with. You can apply the texture you want literally with one click:
Add textures to your images with this great new panel for Adobe Photoshop CC. Included with this panel is a wonderful sampler set of textures from Fly Paper Textures. You can also add your own custom textures for even more creative possibilities.
As the user reviews say, “Really beautiful textures and the panel works so well. I had spent hours trying to do by myself what you can get in 30 seconds with these amazing textures. You can make the images look aged, with character, really interesting and creative effects. Exquisitely done and so fast and easy to get that just perfect added touch to some of my pictures! Thank you very much flypapertextures and Russell :)”
Make sure you sign in with your Adobe ID when you install it above, so the add-on will automatically be included in your extensions the next time you launch Photoshop. To get started with Paper Textures Pro, just watch this helpful 10-minute tutorial video on how to use it:
Check out the complete guide to all the features added to Photoshop in all CS and CC versions.
See Also
- Don’t miss Adobe’s current specials and promotions
- The 10 most common myths about Creative Cloud
- How to save 60% with the Student & Teacher Editions
- Free Adobe Stock! Download 1,000,000+ top images
- Don’t need full Cloud? Get PS + LR for $9.99/month
- Download free Adobe books (choose over 30 titles)
Do you have any questions about textures in Photoshop? Just ask them below and we’ll get you answers fast!
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Fabulous, thank you !
Both of these sets are great.
Thanks for sharing.
Hey, these are cool, and give some nice ‘painterly’ effects.
Appreciate everything you do on your blog to support Adobe users!
Have a great day.
Great stuff.
Do these work with Elements V13?
Yes, they should indeed also work with Photoshop Elements, or any version of Photoshop.
In the simplest use, it would work the same: add a new layer above your photograph, load the desired texture into that layer, and then set the Blending Mode and Opacity per your creativity.
Thanks for the kind comments everyone!
Obrigado pelas texturas
abraço
awesome textures..
lovely
Is there a way to import these into Elements so that they are part of the quick pallet on the side. Right now there’s 10 preinstalled borders, 10 preinstalled textures. It’d be great if we could import textures or frames into this quick pallet. Is it possible?
Very nice, appreciate it!
I downloaded a folder that was supposed to be 213 MB and contain 83 textures. The file I received was 213 MB but only contained 29 zipped files. I unzipped them and have used them. Now I would like the other 54 textures.
Hi Robert,
The other 54 textures come with Paper Textures Pro, which is also free, and discussed in the second half of the post above.
I don’t know if I’m the dumbest person on the planet or what, but no matter what I do, I cannot figure out the steps to install whatever it is I need in order to get access to the “supposedly” free flypaper textures that are “supposedly” free if I have a paid CC subscription. It’s like the feedback loop from the insane asylum. One time I actually arrived at a link with the actual flypaper textures, but they were not free. They had to be purchased. Has anyone found step by step instructions for getting the add-on or extension or whatever and been able to access the paper textures?
Hello Barbara, we’ve just discovered that Russell Brown’s free version of Paper Textures Pro has recently been moved off of the main Adobe site, and onto the new dedicated “Adobe Exchange App Marketplace” website…
It can now be found via this link. The article above has been updated to reflect the new location, and we apologize for the inconvenience.
Make sure you sign in with your Adobe ID when you install it above, so the add-on will automatically be included in your extensions the next time you launch Photoshop CC. (In other words, you must fully restart Photoshop CC in order to see it.)
Hope that helps!
I’m very confused as to where I place texture files that I download (such as the ones you’ve offered here), once I unzip them. I assume they need to be placed somewhere within Photoshop software files??
No, they can be stored anywhere you want that’s convenient for you – just like any other image file you would use in a Photoshop composition.
From the accompanying PDF ebook, “Textures, the Universe, and You”:
On the other hand, the “Paper Textures Pro” add-on covered in the second half of the article above does install its textures in a specific location for Photoshop, and then you find and use its textures via the new panel which is added to Photoshop by this free extension.
Thank you for your kind and thorough explanation!
Absolutely, Angie – glad to help! Thanks for your comments and please stop back anytime.
I’m having problem with downloading. So please help me out!
Hello, not sure we understand the issue – could you please give more details on what you’re trying to do, and what the difficulty is?
Which resource above are you trying to download? Do you get an error or any other messages? If so, what is the exact text of that?
Sorry, we’d need a bit more detail in order to help.
No Access to the page, wrong URL it says.
Comments?
Hi Lars, we just tested the link and have no trouble at all; the 18-page PDF guide and the 213 MB collection of custom Photoshop textures both downloaded no problem for us…
What is the exact text of the message or error you received?
Cannot download
Access Denied
This page isn’t available. Try checking the URL or visit a different page
Just tested all the links in the article above, and everything works and downloads fine for us – no problems at all…
Which one are you having issues with in particular?
As other users have indicated, the textures download links lead to a ‘denied access’ page.
Hey Daniel, thank you for your comment. Our apologies – it appears the Photoshop Texture Collection was behind an area on Adobe’s website that was restricted for some users…
This has been changed, and all users should now be able to download the texture files and ebook without difficulty.
Sorry for the trouble and thank you for your patience! Please let us know if you have any further issue.
Worked! Thank you.
Hi. After reading this post, I was intrigued on how to install the Paper Textures Pro. After searching, I have found a way to install it on Photoshop 2023. Users will need to go to this page http://install.anastasiy.com/ and download and install the program for either Windows or Mac (I don’t know if the Mac version works, as I have Win 11).
Once installed, run the program go to File Install Extension navigate to where the person has downloaded the file highlight it and click install. They then need to restart PS go to Window Extensions (Legacy) and the panel should be listed. This worked for me but obviously no guarantees it will work for everybody.
Just thought this might help other readers who are having any issues installing the panel.
Kind Regards
Tim
Thanks so much for sharing, Tim!
Could be helpful if someone is running into issues.