Technique Thursday - Making a Pattern for Papers

Thursday, December 02, 2010
WOW  Three blog posts in one day!  Mark it on the Calendar!
First we had our freebie for the 12 days of Christmas Day 2 , then my catch up post for the ABC Book and now your Technique Thursday post!  MOM?  Do I get a cookie? :D


So, How do I make a pattern for a paper?f
So you have this cute set of brushes, but the thought of brushing them all over a 12x12 piece of paper just doesn’t appeal to you.  This is such an easy task I was surprised how many asked to learn it. 
Let’s start with a 4x4 new canvas with a transparent background.  Can be smaller or bigger, but keep it square for this lesson.
Brush your art here or drag in your png file or create a shape.
Make sure you keep your art centered.  Move afterwards if you need to.  
TIP:  I place a horizontal and vertical guide in the center of my canvas for reference.
After I create my art, I simply move it to the center and it lines up beautifully using the guides as my snap 
Something to keep in mind for making your pattern image:  You don’t want to fill the canvas area, you want to fill only about half to three-quarters of it with free space around it. 
Merge all your layers together if you’ve made separate layers. (Cmd E)
Duplicate that layer (Cmd J).
With the top layer selected.  Go to your menu FILTER>OTHER>OFFSET
A dialog box will appear.  Set your pixels to half the size of your canvas.  for a 4x4 = 1200 px, I used 600px.
Make sure Wrap Around is checked.
You will now have this.  Click ok.
No need to merge you layers.  But if you have a white background, turn it off now.
Define Pattern:
Menu  EDIT>DEFINE PATTERN


Give it a name.  I called mine cc-Flower
Open a new file 12x12 300ppi white background (you can change this later if you like.
Double click on the layer box to bring up your Layer Styles (or you can click the little Fx at the bottom of your Layer Palette and select “pattern Overlay”.
Click on Pattern Overlay
Scroll down to the pattern you just made and select.
Make sure your Preview is checked.  Do you like the size?  If not, adjust the scale.  
Don’t worry, you can change your mind later just by double clicking the layer again and bringing up this box.
Now that’s all that’s left to do is change the color of your background if you like and texturize the paper.  Or pull in a different paper for a background if you like.
Done!  Now didn’t I tell you it would be easy?!?
So your assignment is, if you should so choose to accept it, is to make a patterned paper.  Play with the pixel sizes in the Offset dialog box, see how they react.  See how it applies when you set this as a pattern.  Doesn’t cost you a thing to play!
Here’s my pattern shown with 100% scale and a 35% scale set in the Layer Styles Pattern Overlay.


Forum Subscriber’s BONUS:
OH and you will want to save this pattern too!  Or a bunch of them to a set?  Find that in the PDF in our DDS Artist's Studio forum.  You have to be registered and logged in to have access.  But the ones you just created will stay in your patterns until you replace them or delete them.




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