How to apply grain texture effect in GIMP
How to apply grain texture effect in GIMP
Question
I am trying to follow https://medium.com/google-design/salt-pepper-the-art-of-illustrating-texture-c962dc67cc35 to add material design effect to my project in GIMP.
But the tutorial is specifically for Adobe Photoshop and so I got stuck on step 4, since GIMP does not have a grain texture effect.
How can I apply a grain texture effect in GIMP? Is there any plugin or method of doing it in GIMP?
Accepted Answer
- Put your shape layer inside a layer group (Layer>New Layer Group; drag the layer onto the group in the layers list). This group will hold your shape and any textures we add.
- Make a new transparent layer in the layer group on top of your shape layer. This is the layer we're going to put the texture on.
Set the layer Mode from "Normal" to "Soft Light".
With the new transparent layer selected, draw the gradient you want using the gradient tool (click and drag from the start to the end of where you want your gradient to be). I'll do a simple black/white gradient. Now we have a gradient, but no texture!
- Run Filters>Noise>Spread to randomly move the pixels of our gradient around. Set the amount to something large (like 100) for more effect.
- If you want slightly more realistic grain, use Filters>Blur>Gaussian Blur (1-3px) then Filters>Enhance>Sharpen (set to 50+%). This keeps the grain from being just 1px noise.
You can extend this even more by adding multiple grain layers, different blend modes, or adding grain from a texture image.
Hope that helps!