Well it seems many of you are impressed with the silhouette effects I posted at http://www.intofotos.com/photography/2008/05/11/creating-custom-silhouettes … I’m delighted!!!

I’ve seen a number of you having a go and the results are fantastic .. I’ve also had quite a number of folk ask for assistance on how they can achieve this effect too so without further ado here goes …

1. Shoot your silhouette images with the instructions here
2. Open your chosen silhouette image in Photoshop
3. Open your chosen texture image in Photoshop.
4. Select the entire picture by clicking on the move tool (located at the top of the main vertical menu [see pic. A]) + shift key and dragging onto the top of the silhouette image. Resize or rotate the texture if need be to the same size as the silhouette image canvas.
5. This should put the texture on top of the photo you’re applying the texture to. At this time you should not be able to see the photo, only the texture on top.
6. Open up the layers menu on the right side. If you can’t find it, go to Windows and then down at the bottom select Layers. If the box is already checked, uncheck it, and then go back to recheck it again (this will open the windows box automatically to Layers).
7. In the layers box you need to right click on the layer with the texture. Next, select Blending Options (or simply click on the box [see pic B]).
8. You will now be at a large menu. Highlighted on the left side should be Blending Options: Default. We are going to use both the Opacity and Blend Mode under General Blending at the top. Click the drop-down menu under Blend Mode and select Overlay (towards the middle of the menu). This will now make the texture over the photo more transparent. The default Opacity should be 100% but you can adjust this if necessary – [see pic C]
9. Now you can either leave the image here as is if you’re happy with it or depending on the texture you have used you may need to to some more work.  If so, read on.
10. Click on the silhouette image layer and then select levels adjustment layer by selecting the adjustment layer tool [see pic D].  This will create a new layer above the silhouette layer where you can adjust the levels of your original silhouette for more or less impact.
11. If you wish to, you can also add another texture layer using the same steps outlined above.  My second image you will see that I used two layers to achieve the final effect.

I think that about covers it .. if not, leave a comment below.

There are plenty of free textures available on Flickr and around the internet so collect a few you think might be suitable and have fun!