Railworks America

Here is an easy tip I learned a while ago to help really make your textures "pop" and more crisp without having to use the Sharpen filter which in most cases causes more harm (noise) than good.

This is something you should save for last.. When everything is done.

Step 1: Flatten all your layers (but god whatever you don't don't slip and save as the same psd and close photoshop.. You just lost all your layers. :) )

Step 2: Make a copy of your background layer and make the copy the active layer

Step 3: In Photoshop go to Filters/Other/Highpass. Mess around with different values. Usually anywhere from 1.0 - 2.0 is all you'll need.. Experiment as you wish.

Mine looks like this:


Step 4: Set the blending mode of your new layer to "Overlay"..

You're done.. You should now notice (click the layer off and on) your texture now has that little extra crispness and sharpness to it to really make it stand out better.

Before:


After


In game

Also useful to use as a mask at times as it finds detail the edge detect filters might not.

A safer version of step 1:

Select all, Copy Merged, paste as a new layer.

Great repaint Bill, but try using 10% bright grey or similar on the text? might attach it to the body a bit more, it gives something for the overlay to work with.

Kali wrote:Also useful to use as a mask at times as it finds detail the edge detect filters might not.

A safer version of step 1:

Select all, Copy Merged, paste as a new layer.

Great repaint Bill, but try using 10% bright grey or similar on the text? might attach it to the body a bit more, it gives something for the overlay to work with.

Thanks man.

Nice followup for Step 1.. Yep Much safer.

It actually just skipped my mind that I never toned down the black in the text like the top of the locomotive. :) Thanks for reminding me.