Photoshop in 60 Seconds: Seamless Patterns

Final product image — What You'll Be Creating

Welcome to our Photoshop in 60 Seconds series, in which you can learn a Photoshop skill, feature, or technique in just a minute!

Photoshop in 60 Seconds: Seamless Patterns

You can create beautiful seamless patterns from one stock image by taking advantage of Layer Masks in Adobe Photoshop. Utilize the tutorial below to create your own patterns from scratch, or save yourself the work by downloading one of the thousands of Seamless Patterns available to you through GraphicRiver.

In this entry for our Photoshop in 60 Seconds series, let's take a look at how to create a seamlessly repeating pattern in Photoshop.

How to Create a Seamless Pattern

When creating seamless patterns, the goal is to take an image such as this one, and create a pattern from it so that when it is tiled, there are no visible seams. The first step in the process is to see what the seams look like naturally. We do that with the Offset filter, that's through Filter > Other > Offset.

Offset Filter for Seamless Patterns in Adobe Photoshop

Make sure that the Wrap Around option is selected.

Use the Wrap Around Option for Offset Filter

Now if you have a different type of image, you can actually create a Selection of the seamed area, and use something like the Content Aware Fill.

Using Content Aware Fill for Seamless Patterns

On this image, that doesn't work very well, because it creates a lot of distortion. A better technique is to create a Copy of that background layer, run the Offset Filter again to values that are the opposite of what you ran the first time.

Create a Copy and Use Offset Filter with Opposite Values

Mask out this new layer by holding down the Alt key while adding the layer mask, and then, with the brush, revealing the pieces of candy that sit on top of those seams.

Mask Out the Layer to Create Seamless Pattern

With a little bit of careful brush work, you can completely cover all of those seams. And then we go to Edit > Define Pattern. And then that pattern is available wherever patterns are used in Photoshop, and it tiles seamlessly.

Define Pattern to Create a Seamless Tile

A Bit More Detail

Want to learn more about Adobe Photoshop's vast tools and settings? Check out these tutorials below:

60 Seconds?!

This is part of a new series of quick video tutorials on Tuts+. We're aiming to introduce a range of subjects, all in 60 seconds, just enough to whet your appetite. Let us know in the comments what you thought of this video and what else you'd like to see explained in 60 seconds!