Make Realistic Wood in Photoshop (or GIMP)

In this instructable you will learn how to make realistic wood in Photoshop or GIMP. The steps might not be exactly the same for GIMP as they are for Photoshop. Photoshop (for Mac OS X) is used in this instructable.

Step 1 Create a new image

I made a 640 x 480 transparent image but it really doesn't matter what you do.

Comments

[theburn7]

I Made One!

[theburn7]

after using picnik.com ....

[theburn7]

interesting, i see how this works in photoshop with liquify, but how do you get the same results with The GIMP

[burzvingion]

This is an interesting approach, its actually fairly similar to the method I usually use, which is to fill a solid color in one layer, add a new layer on top of it, do Filter->Render->Fibers on that layer, then set the blending mode to either color burn or linear burn (soft light and luminosity can sometimes look good too) and the layer opacity to about 40%. To finish I link and merge the layers and liquify the resulting layer. Liquify is amazing to play around with, but for this I like to use the turbulence tool and set the turbulent jitter to around 5 or 6, then just "follow the grain." Then some bulging and blurring for kicks, and it looks pretty good.

[burzvingion]

and by "blurring", i mean "smudging."

[HamO]

Excellent, nicely done!

[lookatmygrlyfont]

thanks :)