Create retro vector textures in 5 minutes or less (plus a few freebies)
You don’t need to drop money on a Shutterstock, iStock to get those gritty feels in your artwork. You don’t even need to spend time hunting through Vecteezy or Freepik. With Illustrator’s Image Trace tool you can easily create custom textures quickly and easily.
Step 1.
Navigate your way over to the ever benevolent Unsplash and find you a good a reference photo. The best photos are either already textures or complex photos with plenty of detail. If your texture search isn’t working for you you can also try searching for abstract or aerial photos. (Or by cheat by using the example image)
Some alternative places to hunt for free images:
• Pexels
• Wild Textures
Step 2.
Bring that image into illustrator and select Object > Image Trace > Make. Your computer will begin computing the trace, this might take a couple seconds. Once the initial trace is completed, pull up the image trace dialog box (if it isn’t immediately visible select Window > Image Trace).There’s a few settings in here that will make the world of difference for you as you edit.
- Mode: Black and White. This how we generate our texture.
- Threshhold: This slider controls what values in the image will be interpreted as black or white. For lighter photos you’ll want to ease threshold higher. For darker images, lower.
- Paths, Corners & Noise: Use these sliders to fine tune your trace. The higher the number, the more detailed (and complex) the trace will be.
- Select create Fills, for these textures we don’t want strokes
- Select the “Ignore White” text box.
*Aside: if you’re working on an older machine you may want to compress the image first.
Your trace should look a little something like this:
Step 3.
Once you’re satisfied with your texture hit the expand button in the properties panel. You’re texture is now ready to use! Depending on the complexity of your trace you may want to copy a portion of your trace using the Direct Selection tool (white arrow tool).
Copy/Paste the texture into your design tool of choice and have fun! 🎉
As promised here’s a few freebies:
