Blog . How to Make a Pattern in Adobe Photoshop
How to Make a Pattern in Adobe Photoshop
10/21/13 | Posted by Leah Yochman | Posted in Digital Creativity
If you’ve ever wondered how to make your own pattern, congratulations because its your lucky day! Patterns can be used for a lot of things, ranging from an advertisement to the basis of a digital painting. First find what you would like to use as a pattern, you can use a drawing, vector images, clip art, and much more. For the tutorial I have chosen to use my own artwork I made in Adobe Photoshop.
First open up the file you want to make a pattern for, if you don’t have one already, create a new file. I created a new Photoshop file and chose to make the image size 8.5 by 11 inches with the resolution set at 300. Once the file is open click on the word File at the very top of the screen and select “Place”. Once you have selected to Place an image, a menu will open asking you to locate the file you would like to use. After choosing your file and it’s placed, erase the areas you don’t want to use for the pattern.
Next click on the marquee tool icon on the side tool bar, it looks like a square box made out of dashed lines. Use this to create a box around the image you would like to use for your pattern. Once it is selected click on the word "Edit" at the very top of the screen and select “Define Pattern…”. A small window should open asking you what you would like to name your pattern, for the tutorial I have chosen to name my pattern “Leah Yochman”.
Now use the marquee tool to select the area you would like to fill with your new pattern. I have chosen to fill the whole Photoshop file with my pattern. Once the area is selected click on the word Layer at the very top of the screen, hover over “New Fill Layer” and select “Pattern…”. A window will open asking you if you would like to name the new layer anything special as well as making any changes to the color, mode, and opacity. I chose to not adjust any of those options for the tutorial, but feel free to experiment with them if you would like. Click on the OK button once you have finished selecting your options and a smaller window will open.
This window allows you to select the scale of your pattern along with selecting the pattern you would like to use. I chose to set the scale of my pattern to 41% because I wanted to fill the screen with rows of the pattern. Once you have decided on your scale and pattern select ok and you are now finished creating your custom pattern.