Pixiq

I never like using another person's image in my composite work, even if it's only a texture.  A friend of mine is doing a lot of great work by combining free downloadable grunge textures from the Net and then combining them with his images, but that doesn't appeal to me.  I want to make my own textures.

The image you see here is comprised of a very strange 'creature' I bought in Peru ( I don't know what else to call this thing -- it's some kind of sculpture built over a glass bottle that I had to have) with a rock texture.  The closeup of the rock surface was originally photographed in color, as you see below,

and I simply reduced it to black and white by moving the saturation slider in the hue/saturation dialog box (Image > adjustments > hue/saturation)all the way to the left.  I then added contrast and made the image quite a bit lighter using Image > adjustments > levels.

Finally, I selected the texture using Select > all, and then I pasted it over the Peruvian artwork with Edit > paste.  The texture was now a layer, and then I adjusted the opacity in the Layers palette to 60%, and I was done.  It's as simple as that.

You can photograph a myriad of subjects for this kind of purpose.  Concrete, sand, sand paper, stucco, art paper. rock surfaces, bark, and many other subjects work very well. Just make sure you have complete depth of field so the texture is sharp, then turn it into black and white before combining it with another image. You can also use it in color, too, but the effect will be quite different.