Texture Fail

[paku]

As you can tell, I'm kinda new to textures. I wanted to darken and add some mood to this photo and instead she looks like a clown. Here is the original:



Process:
Made b/w adjustment in Lightroom, then open the RAW in Photoshop. Found a texture, copied it as a new layer, and lowered the opacity. Then tried to blend the disaster by adding a Exposure adjustment layer and increasing the gamma.

So, besides picking a better texture, how would you apply it in photoshop, and what texture would you use for a shot like this (if any)?

[wulf]

In this case, you particularly don't want a texture that applies a large block of colour to your model's nose! I'd suggest experimenting with a number of different textures to build an eye for what works but I'd stay away from coloured ones in the first instance.

Wulf

[Darwin]

The original shot is a beautiful one! Stunning.

If you like the "texture" of the colored textures but don't like the colors, you can try a hue/saturation layer on the texture and tone it down a bit, or desaturate it completely before layering it. I'm also new to texturing but I've found this helpful when correcting for the "clown effect".

[windrider86]

You can always mask or erase areas of the texture that you dont want to show.