Grass in Photoshop

[Teyrnas]

This is a cool technique I picked up on the internet; I do not take credit, as it wasn't me who devised it. I did it in CS4, but I am pretty sure it could be done in older versions as well.

Start a new document - surprise, surprise. Size doesn't really matter. Open up a new layer, and fill it with brown, a nice dirt-brown.

Open up a new layer, and fill it with white this time. Now noise this up. Full effect (400%), uniform, and monochromatic. Now blur it a little bit. Slightly less than 1 pixel, 0.7 did it for me. Change the blend mode to multiply.

Now, a new layer, filled with white, same noise settings as the last one, and same blur. On second thought, you could probably just duplicate the first white layer. Blend mode normal.

New layer, filled with grass-green. Multiply. Merge it down with the second white, noisy one.

Filter-Stylize-Wind. Stagger from the left. Now rotate the image, 90 CW. Use the wind filter again. Same settings. Then rotate it back, 90 CCW. There you have a cool-looking grass. It could be used as a pattern for other purposes, using the Offset filter and the Clone Stamp tool quite easily.

Hope you like it, and as I said, it's not my technique to begin with. I just found it.

[Asharad]

Wow, that is nice! Here is what mine looks like.

[Teyrnas]

Yeah, I find it really cool. You can use it as a patter as well, and then it would look something like this. (20% scale, embossed and just some simple water to create some contrast)

[Steel General]

@Asharad - That's pretty good, I'll have to give it a try sometime...Did you put a bevel on it? If you wanted to use it as a pattern you'd be better off without the bevel.

[Teyrnas]

I created a pattern of something like what Asharads result looked like, by offsetting by half the image size, then used the clone stamp tool to fill out the blanks. Then, Define Pattern. On the picture I've just painted in some green, used Pattern Overlay (multiply, 60% opacity), and then used a Bevel and emboss on it, to give it some distinction from the water. But the Bevel and Emboss has nothing to do with the pattern itself.

[Ascension]

That's pretty cool. I'm immediately wondering if I could use this to create a tree pattern for regional-style maps.

[Midgardsormr]

There is a superb technique for trees that someone discovered on Cartotalk that involves a monochromatic noise filter and a bevel. It wouldn't match the scale of this grass, but it would be good for regional to wide local maps. I used the technique on the Mennin's Hallow map to good effect.

Here's the thread I found it in: http://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=1139

[Hoel]

I was looking at the exact same tut over at photoshoplady the other day. I haven't tried it yet, but I will get on it.

[aiRo25]

Thank you for this tutorial. This is exactly what I was looking for for my map.

[Teyrnas]

Great that someone found a use for it.

@Ascension: The dirt-layer and the noise belonging to it is there so that you can erase some grass and have dirt show through. I didn't think it looked good so I decided not to include that last step. When I took that decision, I didn't think of the fact that it would render the first steps useless. There you have the point of them atleast. Sorry for the trouble :p