How to create a marble texture in Photoshop

Marble is one of those classic textures that will never go out of style and it’s becoming very popular in graphic design. I’ve seen it used as a background for styled stock photos, cards, and even websites. If you want to use a light background for your blog or graphics, you can create a marble texture in Photoshop instead of using photographs.

If you’ve ever wondered why I love to use Photoshop so much for patterns and textures, this tutorial is your answer. It’s so easy to create a detailed texture with only a few filters.

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I’m very new at this and very nervous, so please excuse my mistakes ?

Here’s how to make a marble texture in Photoshop. Scroll down for the written tutorial.

How to make a marble texture in Photoshop

Open a new document in Photoshop, choose your desired dimensions and resolution. I’m creating an 800x1200px canvas at 72 pixels/inch because I want to use it for this post’s featured image.

Make sure your background is white and set the colors to the default colors by pressing D on your keyboard or using the default colors button.

We are going to use a filter to create a marble effect and then adjust it until we get the perfect marble texture. Go to Filter > Render > Difference Clouds. You will get a black and white cloudy image.

Add Difference Clouds (Alt + Ctrl + F ) a few times until you have a texture that you like. Remember, this won’t look like marble yet.

Tip: If you want the veins to have different colors, change the Foreground Colors every time you add a Difference Cloud.

Now go to Image > Adjustments > Equalize. This small adjustment will make the lighter parts of the image white and the darker parts will change to black.

Then go to Image > Adjustments > Levels and move the sliders until the image is lighter and the veins are thinner.

While this might look more like marble, we still have to add a few filters to get the final marble texture. Duplicate your layer and go to Filter > Distort > Twirl. Set the angle to 50 degrees and click OK.

The next step is to rotate the top layer. I’m going to use the Edit > Transform > Flip Horizontal command. This will be of great help if you want to create a seamless pattern.

All we have left to do is blend the two layers. On the top layer, set the blending mode to Screen. Now you have a beautiful marble texture.

How to color the marble texture

You can lighten it or add a bit of color by adding another layer on top of your marble layers and coloring it by using the Paint Bucket Tool. I’m going to use a gray layer and the blending mode set to Overlay to make the veins a bit lighter. The Overlay blending mode will only color the veins.

If you want to change the color of the background, but leave the black veins, change the blending mode to Multiply.

And you can even have lighter veins and a colorful background if you add two layers. I’ve used a gray background set to Overlay to colorize the veins and a pink one set to Multiply to colorize the background.

Tip: Use Blur or Gaussian Blur to make the veins softer.

How to make a seamless pattern

I’ve created another marble background, this time using a square 800x800px canvas. I want to create a seamless pattern so I can use it over and over again on documents of different sizes.

Select the two layers in the Layer panel and press Ctrl/Command+E to merge them.

We are going to use an Offset Filter to create a seamless pattern. So go to Filter > Other > Offset and set the horizontal and vertical values to half the size of your canvas. Since I have an 800x800px canvas, I’m going to set the value to 400px. Make sure Wrap Around is selected.

If you look carefully at your image, you’ll notice a clear line in the center. This is the most tricky part. You’ll have to use the Clone Stamp Tool (S) and a soft brush to erase it.

Use a brush of 100px and 10% hardness and click on the area around those lines while holding down the Alt/Option key. This will copy the selected area. Then click on the lines to replace them with the selected texture.

Once you remove those lines, your pattern should be seamless. To add it to your pattern library, just go to Edit > Define Pattern and save it. Don’t forget to save your pattern collections using the Presets Manager (Edit > Presets > Presets Manager).

To use the marble pattern, open a new document and go to Edit > Fill (Shift + F5).

Let me know if you have any questions.