Adding Patterns to Cloth in Photoshop
© 2009 Robin Wood
Hi! In this tutorial, I’m going to be showing you one method to add patterns to cloth in Photoshop. I’m using Photoshop CS4, but the basic part of this will work with any version.
So, we’ll start with an image that you’ve painted. In this case, it’s clothing painted on a render I made with Bryce a million years ago, when dinosaurs roamed the earth. Or something like that.
But it should work with any kind of painted fabric, whether you’re making it for a 2D image, like this one, or making clothing that will be wrapped around a 3D shape. It should even work for putting patterns on cloth that’s been photographed.
Let's zoom in a little, so we can see what we're doing.
Okay. I’ve been working on this image for a while, and have all the rest of it done, and divided into layers that I’ve put into Sets, so they aren’t in my way if I don’t want to look at them.
We’ll open the Coat set, using this Flippy Triangle. 
Now, notice that we have the coat that I’ve painted, both right and left sides, and I have the highlights on a separate layer above that.
It’s all in an ivory color, but I want it to be in an Art Nouveau pattern. So let’s make that happen.
The first step, so I can see what I’m doing, is to duplicate the Left Coat layer by holding down the Option key, that would be alt on a PC, and dragging it down so the copy will be below the Left Coat layer. As soon as the cursor changes to these double arrows, you have a copy.
Now, I’m going to select the Coat layer, and set its Blend Mode to Multiply, in the Blend Mode menu at the top of the Layer Panel.
Then select the Left Coat Copy layer, and use the Lasso tool to select one fold of the cloth, like this.
Okay, we’re ready to get the pattern.
I have one ready, and already open. It’s one I adapted from a pattern I found in a Dover Book. I made a single repeat which I defined as a Pattern. 
I’m using it as a Pattern layer, which I can get from the Fill or Adjustment Layer icon down here, scaled to 30%, which is a good scale for this image.
Select All, that's command A on a Mac, ctrl A on a PC, and go to Edit > Copy Merged, because this is a pattern.
Move back to the first image, and go to Edit > Paste Into, or use Shift Command V (that’s Shift ctrl V on a PC.) 
That pastes whatever is on the clipboard into a new layer, and at the same time, makes a mask for that layer, as you can see here.
So, that looks good, except it has an ivory overtone, because of the color on the Coat Layer.
Let’s fix that.
Select the Coat layer, go to the Fill or Adjustment Layer icon, and choose Hue/Saturation from the menu. Which closes the Layer Panel here, because this is such a small screen. It won’t if you're working at a reasonable size.
Then just push the Saturation pointer all the way to the left, to totally desaturate the layer.
Of course, it totally desaturated everything, not just the one layer,
So I’m going to click in the gray area next to the tabs, to close the Adjustment panel,
And click in the gray area next to the tabs down here to open the Layers panel.
Then hold down the Option key (alt on a PC,) and click between the two layers to make a Clipping Layer, so the Saturation adjustment only affects the Coat layer, and nothing else.
And there we go.
See? Here it is again with the ivory cast. And here it is with the adjustment layer removing it.
Alright, now lets just adjust the position of the pattern.
Select the Pattern layer, let’s name it Pat 1.
Make sure it’s not linked to the Mask. It shouldn’t be, unless you’ve linked it, but just be sure there’s no link icon here in the middle.
Now tap Command T, ctrl T on a PC, to Transform it.
I’ll zoom out a bit, so that you can see.
And we’ll just rotate it a bit, by holding and dragging at the corner.
And then drag it down so it covers the whole fold.
Adjust the position a little.
And double click inside it, to accept the transformation.
And that’s basically it. You can do all the rest the same way.
Just select a fold.
Paste Into - that gives you your mask again - and adjust. And that's it!
If you have a place where there’s a crack between pattern sections, like we have here, just select the Mask, (Click the Mask Thumbnail to Select it,) get white paint, and the Brush tool, and then just paint white on the Mask, like this, to reveal more of the pattern.
You can work from both sides of the crack by selecting the other layer mask, of course.
Okay! That’s it for the basics.
Now, if you have time, and you want to, you can distort the edges a bit, with the Liquify filter.
Let’s see how to do that.
Select the layer you want to change, in this case, Pat 1, and then go to Filter > Liquify. This isn’t in older versions of Photoshop, so you might not have it. If you don’t, just skip this part.
That opens this great big huge dialog.
Let me zoom in. Oops! Note to self: do not wiggle the mouse while you're using the Zoom tool. [It draws a tiny marquee, that zooms in to the maximum percentage.]
Now, in here, there are all kinds of settings.
I suggest that you use Show Backdrop, Use the layer that is the fabric, in this case Left Coat. You can choose it from the menu here [at the bottom of the dialog.]
I like Mode Behind; and an opacity of 35 or 40.
That gives me the clearest image to work with. But try other settings, because your milage may vary.
Then use the Forward Warp tool, here at the top of the tool bar, with a good size and density, and I suggest a Brush Pressure of 100% so you’ll move things, not smudge them, and just very carefully push the fabric from outside the fold, into the piece of cloth you are working with. Push it into the fold, like this, to crunch it up a little.
Don’t worry that that’s going to distort the part out there, because that’s going to be hidden, anyway.
So just go all around the edges, like this, compressing the pattern to give the illusion of cloth that's seen at an angle.
And that’s that one!
And that's what it looks like.
Let’s look at this other one, too.
Redo the Backdop settings (the Use Layers part doesn’t persist, so you’ll have to redo it every time.) Use Left Coat, and there we are.
Zoom in again. I'm going to use the Marquee this time.
Now, if you have a fold where the fabric is kind of folded inside it, like this one, then you can reduce the size of your brush, and push that into the folds a bit, too. Be subtle, and don’t make it look warped; just folded.
 If you see that you’re gotten too distorted, push it back, with short strokes, or use the Reconstruct tool, if you’ve gone too far. Be very careful doing this, because it’s easy to make it blurry, and you don’t want that.
So easy does it, gentle little short strokes.. 
Small steps, Ellie,
Until you think it looks about right.

I'm using my graphics tablet to make the brush larger. I've got a Wacom Intuos 3, so it has a slider on it. If you don't have that, you can use the bracket keys. Square Brackets. The left will make it smaller, and the right will make it bigger.
You don't have to make a career of it; it does take extra time, but it's those little touches that can add a lot to your picture when you're done.
Okay, that looks good, so let's stop there.
And that's what it looks like when it's all finished and in place for that one fold.
And that’s it! Just keep doing this for every fold in the garment, and you’ll have fabric that looks like it was always printed, and not just a print overlay.
This is Robin Wood, and I hope you found this helpful.