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Working with Pattern Sets
by Al Ward
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Pattern sets can be very useful in your Photoshop projects, but they tend to be overlooked or misunderstood on their use by many people.
Creative types such as digital scrapbookers, digital artists and the like can use these cool presets to enhance all manner of images.
Pattern sets can be loaded into Photoshop via a number of sources inside the software. The first I’ll mention is the Preset Manager.
Under Edit>Preset Manager you may select Patterns and then navigate to a folder where you have sets saved or use the Adobe Default sets.
In the example below I’ve loaded a set of wood patterns I created some time ago. The file extension for Pattern Sets is .pat, so they are
relatively easy to find on your hard drive if you forgot where they are located.
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You may use the Fill option (Edit>Fill) to fill a layer or selection with a pattern.
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In the image below, I defined my background as a pattern by having my image open and going to Edit>Define Pattern.
I then used that pattern to fill the type.
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Another way to load and use patterns is with the Pattern Stamp tool, found on the toolbar. With this tool you can actually paint
with a pattern rather than a color, and you can even manipulate the shape dynamics like a standard paintbrush.
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The one place I use pattern sets the most is when creating Layer Styles for my text or buttons.
There are 3 areas in the Layer Styles dialog box where patterns can be utilized: Pattern Overlay
(a great feature for filling your image with a photo), Texture (uses a pattern as the texture), and Stroke.
You can actually stroke text with a pattern, and not just a color or gradient. Very cool!
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