Photoshop Index
PowerPoint Backgrounds with Photoshop: Reticulation
Effects
See Also: Photoshop
TIFFs for PowerPoint
Before You Begin
I'm sure all of you would first like to know what
reticulation means: reticulation is a process of crafting metal
by inducing heat through a torch - ending up with metal which is
patterned into ridges, textures and emboss effects. Photoshop comes
with a Reticulation filter which tries to emulate the effect.
Photoshop does have a learning curve - but if you
follow all instructions on this page, you can easily create reticulated
backgrounds for PowerPoint within Photoshop. However, this article
does assume some familiarity with the Photoshop interface.
You can find links to Photoshop resources at Indezine's
Photoshop page.
I'm using Photoshop LE for this tutorial - you can
use almost all these steps to replicate the tutorial in Photoshop
5, 5.5 or 6 or even in PhotoDeluxe since the filter set in all these
applications is similar.
I've also used the surface texture effects in Corel
Painter for this tutorial - but you could leave out that step if
you don't have access to Painter. Nevertheless, if you are serious
about creating graphics, you could never go wrong buying Painter!
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Step 1
Open any picture in Photoshop - this could be a digital
camera snap, a stock picture or a scanned one. It doesn't matter
- we just need something to start with!
I've opened a picture in Photoshop - you can view
the screenshot here:
Resize the image to 800 x 600
pixels using the Image -> Image Size... dialog box. You will
have to deselect the 'Constrain Proportions' option.
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Step 2
We'll need to choose two colours from the picture using the Eyedropper
tool - one for the foreground colour and the other for the background
colour.
Choose the Eyedropper from the Tools palette and click on a chosen
colour in the image. The colour thus clicked is displayed as the
foreground colour in the tools palette.
Within the tools palette, click the swap colours arrow on the top
right of the colour swatches.
Now click on any other chosen colour with the Eyedropper tool to
choose a second colour. Try to choose colours that would look good
in combination with each other. Also, avoid using very bright or
fluorescent colours.
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Step 3
 Now
is the time to reticulate our image!
Access the Reticulation filter dialog box from the Filter menu
in Photoshop through Filter -> Sketch -> Reticulation...
As displayed in the screenshot here, keep your black and white
level options at a value of zero.
Experiment with the density values anywhere between 1 and 5 - you
could try going a little higher - but for all practical purposes,
5 should be sufficient. Click 'OK' to apply the filter. We now end
up with an image which is like a watermark of the image we started
with.
Save the picture under a different name. If you are following the
next optional step of tweaking the image in Painter, then you can
close the image.
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Step 4
If you don't have access to Corel Painter, you can
skip this step.
Open the saved picture in Painter and choose Effects
-> Surface Control -> Apply Surface Texture... - the 'Apply
Surface Texture' dialog box will open.
Set the values to match as under:
Using: Image Luminance
Softness: 20.2
Amount: 20%
Picture: 100%
Shine: 0%
Reflection: 0%
Brightness: 1.20
Concentration: 5.0
Exposure: 1.50
Let other values remain at their default. Choose 'OK', save the
image and exit Painter. Open it again in Photoshop and proceed to
the next step.
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Step 5
In Photoshop, choose Filter -> Render -> Lighting
Effects. You could tweak as desired. I used the following values:
You're done. We just finished creating a reticulated
background.
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