Creating Textured Wood in Photoshop

This technique works in Elements as well as all releases of Photoshop

1. Open new document
2. Add a new layer name wood (Alt+New Layer icon allows you to name the layer)
3. Fill Layer with dark wood - R102, G53, B26
4. Filter > Noise > Add Noise
5. Amount - 90, Uniform, Monocromatic
6. Filter > Blur > Motion Blur
7. Angle 0 degrees, Distance -85
8. Stretch sideways to apply the filter to the whole layer using
9. Free Transform + Alt and drag the right side to the right. By holding the Alt key when dragging the left side is expanded to the left as well.
10. Adjustment > Levels – bring in the white point to the left and the black point to the right until you get the wood look you desire.
11. This will give you a smooth wood look. You can add texture after the next step.
12. Photoshop Liquify is at the Top of the Filter menu as an item in Elements go to Filter > Distort > Liquify
13. In the big dialog box the top tool in the toolbox is the distort tool. With a big brush drag this from left to the right to create the wavy wood textue tool. Do this over the entire image. Experiment with the 3rd and 4th tool that swirls the wood. Play with some of the other tools as well.
14. To get a textured wood look Copy this layer to a new layer and name Texture
15. Filter > Render > Lighting Effects
16. Settings are:
17. Default;
18. Directional;
19. In lighting box drag black spot at the end of the line to inside of the top left corner. Draging it in toward the center lightens the image. Drag to suit;
20. At the bottom of the box is box labeled Texture Channel. Click the down arrow and choose the Blue channel. You can experiment with the other channels; for a rough texture leave the setting between Flat and Mountainous. For less texture move the slider to the left toward flat. White is High should be checked.
21. Click OK

You now should have a nice wood image to use in a variety of ways.