Texture Wrapping

Preparation:

You will need to first gather an image you wish to wrap and a texture you want to wrap it with. It is good if you can find a seamless texture to use, but not completely necessary. For this tutorial I will be using the the photo and snake skin texture seen to the left. My texture is not seamless, but it is large enough to cover the area of my object that I wish to wrap (the woman's face), so it will work out. You can download a file with my images here:

Download Snake Girl

Open your image and set it up like mine is with the object on top and texture below it. We are going to need to make a displacement map so Photoshop knows the contours of the object we are going to map. Go to Image>Duplicate, check the Duplicate Merged Layers Only box and hit OK. Next, go Image>Mode>Grayscale to convert your new image to grayscale.

Now you need to blur your image a little so the distortions will be less extreme. Go Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur and use a radius of 2 pixels. Save the image as "facemap.psd" by going File>Save As. Remember where you save it.

Close the gray image and go back to your original one. Move the texture layer above the object by going to the Layers Palette and dragging Layer 2 above Layer 1. Ctrl+click (Mac: Cmd+click) on Layer 2 to load it as a selection. Go to Filter>Distort>Displace. Choose 10% Horizontal and 10% Vertical Scale, Stretch to Fit, and Repeat Edge Pixels. Click OK.

Find your "facemap.psd" file in the window that pops up and click Open. Your texture is now distorted to effectively wrap your object.

Now you need to select the area of your image that you wish to apply the texture to. There are many ways to accomplish this. The Example image is fairly difficult to select, so I will use a quick mask to select the woman's face. Hit the Quick Mask button () then select the Air Brush Tool (). Zoom into your image to make it easier to work with my hitting Ctrl++ (Cmd++) 2 or 3 times. Hide the top texture layer (Layer 2) and click Layer 1 in the Layer Palette. Make sure the Foreground color is set to black (it should already be) and begin air brushing the area you want to wrap (the woman's face). You will need to switch to smaller brushes to get into tight areas. Make sure to only color in the skin areas and not the woman's eyes, mouth, etc. The filled in areas will turn red.

Click the Standard Mode button () to create a selection. Click on the texture layer (Layer 2) in the Layers Palette and hit Delete. The only area of the texture that will be left is the part that is over the area you just masked. You should now be looking at the exquisite being to the left.

Deselect you selection by hitting Ctrl+D (Cmd+D) Go to the Layers Palette and change the Blending Mode to Soft Light. For different objects, different modes may look better. Feel free to experiment with them. You might way to also play with the Opacity level to decrease the strength of the texture. I chose 90%. That's it. You now have yourself a lovely Snake Girl!