More Physical Textures

A few weeks ago, I wrote about some work I have been doing using physical textures, as opposed to overlaying and blending digital textures into a photograph. I find myself quite drawn to the technique. I had been wondering if it was just different for the sake of being different, or whether it can stand alone as giving an interesting and appealing look to an image without the viewer knowing how the look was achieved. In other words, is it the look that is interesting and artistic, or simply knowing that something unusual was done? I personally think that it is an appealing look on its own, and not simply different for the sake of being different. What do you think?

Granulates Sugar Texture © Howard Grill

Coarse Salt Texture © Howard Grill

I should also mention that I did an experiment by taking a blank sheet of paper and putting the texture (salt, sugar, etc.) on it, and then photographing it in the hope that I could use the resulting photograph as a digital texture overlay on any image. I tried using blending modes and opacity adjustments like any other digital overlay to avoid the need to apply physical texture to every image I wanted to try the technique on. It isn’t the same. The look is different because once blending modes are applied, the overlay blends differently in different areas of the image depending on the luminosity of the underlying photo. It can give an interesting effect, but it is different and, in my opinion, not as effective as applying the actual texture to the image itself.

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