Best practices for adding paper textures to images?

[Chris P. Bacon]

Should I use multiple blend modes by duplicating the texture and the image at the layers, use different blend modes for each then blend the whole in one?

Which blend mode is recommended?

Are there any actions or automated methods to optimally blend an image with a paper texture?

My paper texture as I understand must be black and white, if I don't want to add any color from the paper texture.

Are there any other tricks?

[D Fosse]

I'd use Multiply, but you will probably need to lighten it as much as possible without losing texture. For instance a clipped Levels adjustment like this. Layer 1 is the paper in Multiply:

[Chris P. Bacon]

It's too light if I move up the slider that much.

For me it looks good if I don't use that slider at all.

[D Fosse]

You haven't clipped the adjustment to the texture layer. That prevents it from affecting the image layer.

Look carefully at my screenshot again.

[Chris P. Bacon]

Why is my adjustment layer thumbnail different than yours?

Isn't it necessary to turn the paper texture black and white to make sure the color of the paper texture will not interfer with the colors of the image or the multiply blend mode doesn't allow the colors to blend?

If I push up that slider (that removes shadows, right?) I am loosing my texture.

I can see that you have an embedded paper texture there, and mine is linked, because I have that icon on its thumbnail.

Does that have any significance for this blending?

[D Fosse]

It's just that Multiply builds up density in a cumulative way, so that the final result can easily get a bit too dark, and not quite as it would look in real life (where you would also get some lightening). You want the effect, not the overall darkening. So you lighten it to compensate. Go as far as you want, don't overdo it.

The icon is because wide formats will replace the adjustment icon with a generic one because of limited space in the panel. The icon has fixed width, so height goes down.

[Chris P. Bacon]

Thanks.

Could you recommend a simple and good way to scale a JPEG paper texture while it's on?

I usually make my textures in a higher resolution than the image, so I can scale them if necessary.

[Chris P. Bacon]

Only one blend mode can be used to texturize an image with a predefined texture, or multiple blend modes can also be used?

[jane-e]

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@Chris P. Bacon wrote:

Only one blend mode can be used ... or multiple blend modes can also be used?

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Only one blend mode per layer can be used.

Jane

[Leslie Moak Murray]

It would help if you could post a screenshot of what you mean, but in the absence of that, one way of adding a paper texture to an image would be to open the paper image so it's on top of your image layer, and set the paper blending mode to Multiply, then play with the opacity slider to taste.

[Bojan Živković]

I will respond to other tricks question.

You may want to know for lesser known texture option from Filter > Filter Gallery > Texture > Texturizer click on hamburger icon then click Load Texture and navigate to PSD file with texture.

[Chris P. Bacon]

I tried it, but it doesn't work with my PSD paper texture.