Tutorial Details
- Program: Adobe Photoshop
- Difficulty: Beginner
- Estimated Completion Time: 15 Minutes
Download Source Files
Final Product What You'll Be Creating
In today’s quick tip tutorial we will demonstrate how to create a leather texture from scratch using Photoshop filters.
Step 1
Create a new file with a white background. Set the foreground and background color to black and white by pressing D. Click Filter > Texture > Stained Glass.
Step 2
Create new layer and fill it with white. Change its opacity to 50%. Repeat previous filter by pressing Cmd + F. If you want tweak the setting use Cmd + Alt + F.
Step 3
Press Cmd + E to merge both layers. Click Filter > Noise > Add Noise.
Step 4
Press Cmd + A then Cmd + C to copy all to clipboard. Open Channels panel and create new channel. Then Paste (Cmd + V).
Step 5
Click RGB channel to return to Background layer. Click Edit > Fill, choose Use: Color and pick your color. You can use any color you want, just make sure it’s dark enough for the next filter.
Step 6
Click Filter > Render > Light Effects. In Texture Channel choose Alpha 1.
Step 7
The default light is too dark. You need to add more light sources by dragging the lamp icon to the preview box. Set its type to Omni.
Step 8
Click OK and the result should look something like below.
Step 9
Change the background and foreground color to white and black by pressing D then X. Activate the Gradient Tool, choose radial with white to transparent. Create a new layer and draw a gradient.
Step 10
Change opacity to 4%. This will add subtle lighting to the leather.
Step 11
The Lighting Effects filter will add a small border to the image (just a few pixels). To remove it, click Image > Canvas Size and reduce the size of the image.
Step 12 (Optional)
You can change the color by adding an adjustment layer Hue/Saturation. Check colorize and move sliders until you satisfied with the result.
Final Image
That’s it. I hope you like the final result and have learned some new techniques from this short quick tip tutorial.
Enjoyed this Post?
Subscribe to our RSS Feed, Follow us on Twitter or simply recommend us to friends and colleagues!
By Mohammad Jeprie
Photoshop to HTML
Take your Photoshop skills to the next level by learning how to slice up a PSD into a working standards driven HTML website.
Join our newsletter!
U-Design WordPress Theme only $35.00 
Modernize - Flexibility of W ... only $35.00 
When the storm comes - More
Photoshop Basix
Just getting started? Start with our basix tutorials on the fundamentals. View All Basix Tutorials
Create a Tutorial, Get Paid!
Have something to teach the world? Want to earn money doing it? Tutorials, screencasts, and articles published here on Psdtuts+ are largely contributed by readers just like you! We'll pay you great money for good content. Find Out More
Nice one, nice and simple way to achieve the leather texture, didn’t though of something even similar
First!, Simple yet useful. Easy steps!
Fail
Been wondering how to do this for a while! thanks for the tip!
Great tutorial. Will have to use it one day if a client asks for a leather texture.
Saves me the hastle of looking for a stock and can be customized to my liking!
Thanks!
There’s a helluva lotta ‘basix’ crap lately.
I’m sorry you don’t like it.
Actually, this is part of my other “not basix” tutorial which will be published next month.
It’s not that it’s bad at all, and I don’t blame you at all… it’s just that there’s a lack of more advanced tutorials lately.
Good tutorial mate…great presentation of very nice technique…professional work there in this tutorial. thanks for sharing
its really nice.
thanks for sharing
This looks very realistic thnx.
but stage 9 is kind of ruining it?
I’ve search some real leather textures for reference. Usually there’s some slight light cast on them.
You can skip that part if you want.
One thing I learn, to get a realistic look you need to add some flaws on your design.
@Jeprie, agreed! As anyone who has every looked at leather before knows, it’s natural, not man-made. Cows often have cuts, grazes, stretch marks and insect bites – so to recreate the look properly we should aim to replicate these flaws. Great tutorial, i learned a lot!
Didn’t mean to offend you, but sorry if you did. Just a beginner’s mistake. Sorry again
Pretty realistic… good stuff!
its really great can i do this on my laptop?
erm… only realisable on xbox i guess…
sorry but i had to write this
i just tried it..
its gud and easy
Simple Technique: Great outcome.
Simple but great!!!
Very nice effective tutorial.
Excellent!
Amazing result. Thanks for sharing
That might be very useful.
Nice tutorial, but following the steps I get stuck in step 6 because I can’t find the lighting effect filter…
Am I dumb or is it CS5?
Filter > Render > Lighting Effects.
You’ll find it in all version.
Adobe states on their help, that Lighting Effects is not available in CS5 for Mac, 64-bit version
@Christopher Elliott: I didn’t know that. Thank you for sharing.
for CS5 on a MAC,
Filter > Render > Lighting Effects = is not available
what’s the work around for this then?
That’s a nice thing.
Thanks, this tip is really useful
its not look like a leather !
Thank you for the tut
Great tut
tnx
Luka
Ok so stained glass doesn’t work in CS5 on a white background…arrggh!
great tutorial, simple but very effective!!
thanks
Very great tutorial. But I know little about the photoshop so I don’t understand the channel thing.
Anyway, Thanks for the artical.
Excellent.
excelent tutorial. thank man!!!!
My end result wasnt same as this
You will never get exact same result. The stained glass filter will always create a random pattern. Maybe you pick a color that’s too light (Step 5).
i don’t see the step 6 on CS5
You can read comment above, Lighting Effect is not available on Mac 64 bit. Try to work on 32 bit. In PC, Lighting Effect works on 64 and 32 bit.
Something is off about Step 5. Click RGB to return to ‘Background Layer?’ RGB is a layer IN channels. ‘Background Layer’ is the flattened layer in Layers. That seems convoluted to me. Which layer do I fill with the color? The new channel layer I created? That does nothing. Can’t apply the fill to the RGB layer itself. I’m actually stuck.
Fill Background with color.
Actually, clicking RGB after working on a channel will activate last selected layer, in this case Background.
Perfect background for a sports themed ad I’m designing. Created it in the same time I would have spent looking for an image of a football texture. Thx
Really worth, i was looking like these for my mobile site, I made this as my main background.
Thanks alot.
Sadly, I only made it to Step 11 (and my leather looks very different from yours).
Step 12:
“You can change the color by adding an adjustment layer Hue/Saturation. Check colorize and move sliders until you satisfied with the result.”
–> What does ‘adding an adjustment layer’ mean? Do you mean when the RGB channel is selected? Or when the background copy is selected? Some of us don’t know this.
This is something I’ve always wanted to be able to do and this looks very detailed so thank you very much for your hard work
Thank you!
Good tut!
Only one thing: Real leather does not have the sharp edges of the ”stainded glass pattern”
I’ve used the gaussian blur tool on the pattern (approx. 2 pixels of blur…more than enough)
But, really good tut!
Thanks alot.
I tried to use the Stain glass filter ,but photoshop won’t let me on just a plain background. Is there something I need to do before I can Use it?
Amazing tutorial and thank you for sharing
Doesn’t seem to work for me…
Maybe because I have a PC?
For all those using a CS5 64bit on Mac, I found a quick fix that allows you to use Lighting Effects.
See link
http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/836/cpsid_83656.html
Nice tut!
Dude thanks alot saved my day/week!
/grahlie
For all of you having problems with Texture Filters not working on a plain background, are you working in CMYK? Change the image mode to RGB, should work just fine then. Some filters only work in RGB and 8 bits/channel mode.
Upon Step 4, another dialog box comes up before the Fill one…you haven’t told us how to deal with that. Now I can’t get the desired effect after executing the lighting effects…
…please ignore my last comment, I forgot to paste from clipboard – DOH!
/
zikomo!(thax!)
Mine dosent work at step 7 i cant figure out which layer or channel i need to use Render> lighting effects on, if i use it on the RGB channel then it dosent look right and i cant use it on “alpha 1″ i cant press Render if Alpha 1 is marked.
what to do?
Nice tutorial.
Thank you very much.