Adding a canvas background layer to your photo

This method is a quick and simple way to spice up any photo. The best photo choice to use with this technique is practically any photo you like and want to add a special touch to.
The first thing to do is make a quick painting on canvas, and if this part of the process leaves you feeling intimidated, all I can say is: don’t be. Since all you are doing is creating a background layer for your photo the painting does not need to be a masterpiece, just something that pleases your eye. If it makes you feel better I, myself, had never done any painting on canvas before and had quite a bit of fun experimenting with it.
It’s a good idea to use an unframed canvas panel at
8” X 10” so it will be easy to scan when it’s dry.
You can use any type of paints that work on canvas; I like to use acrylic paints since they
dry quite fast.
Next, scan your work of art at 300dpi and open your photo editor.
Now, open the photo you wish to enhance and make sure your layer palette is visible
(Paintshop Pro: View/Palettes/layers or F8. Photoshop: window/layers or F7).
Place your scanned canvas painting onto a new layer above the photo layer and blend both images by playing with the transparency settings until you like what you see.

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3 Responses to “Adding a canvas background layer to your photo”

1. Andrew Quick says:

   March 15, 2012 at 7:10 am

   Really cool effect I will be trying this very soon!
2. caroline says:

   September 3, 2012 at 12:48 am

   Hi nitsa

   I just came across your blog whilst investigating gessoed techniques; was interested that you made a painting on canvas and then scanned it; I tend to take photogprahs of all sorts of things to use as background texture layers for my photos; much quicker!

   http://carolinescamera.blogspot.co.uk/
3. Nitsa says:

   September 3, 2012 at 11:11 am

   Yes, it is much faster to take a picture of a texture and obviously makes more sense if the texture is for example a wall or any large object.
   But whenever possible I prefer to scan the texture (textured papers for example) because I get a better quality of sharpness and resolution from the scanner than the camera.