Photoshop: Texturing and Shading Techniques

Learn how to work with shaders, brushes, colors, and highlights in Photoshop to perform shading and texturing of various materials and surfaces—hard, translucent, 3D, and more.

This course provides techniques you can use in Photoshop to add texture and properly shade a variety of materials and surfaces—whether fibrous, hard, translucent, three-dimensional, or organic. First, learn how to prepare an artboard and import reference images. Next, find out how shaders, highlights, shadows, color, and subsurface scattering can be leveraged to create textures and shading. Then, see how to set up seamless textures and flats, and how to adjust linework, colors, and values. Additionally, this course covers base shading and highlighting steps you can follow to control lighting and refine shadows. Last, discover how to make refinements and final touches.

Introduction

• Welcome
• How to use the exercise files

1. Prepare the Artboard

• Artboard setup
• Importing reference images
• Linework cleanup and staging

2. Understand Textures and Materials

• Introduction to material shaders
• Base highlights and shadows
• Color and surface texture

3. Set Up Colors and Textures

• Set up seamless textures
• Create color and texture flats
• Color and value balance
• Adjust linework transparency

4. Base Shading and Highlights

• Ambient occlusion
• Shadowing techniques
• Highlighting techniques
• Main light source and refined shadows

5. Final Touches

• Specularity and roughness
• Subsurface scattering
• Basic background painting
• Finishing touches

Conclusion

• Next steps