Damien Symonds

Oh, bummer I was hoping it might be smooth textureless fabric like silk. No, I don't have a fast solution for this, sorry.

WHAT DID I SAY?

Hi Leslie! We might be able to manage something. May I see a 100% crop of the worst area? (Make sure your noise removal is done perfectly first.)

No, I mean of the noise sliders

Oh crap, sorry, I misunderstood. I thought you wanted to put the hat on one of the other photos.

Hi Quintin, I've moved this post to Brian's area, because he's the expert in this regard. He'll be along shortly.

May I see a screenshot of them?

I can help you achieve ANY sort of shit you want. But you have to post here, and make sure you read the posting guidelines carefully first.

Good grief, what awful photos. May I suggest setting your standards a bit higher.

I don't think 9464 would work, but I reckon the others might.

No, no tutorial necessary. The noise layer you always add to a gradient is a form of texture. Any other texture, you add the same way. Place it, clip it, then play with its blend mode.

Please post some photos.

No, seriously, don't leave the spacing to your feeble human eyes. Use grids: https://www.damiensymonds.net/2011/05/grids-in-photoshop.html

Great. Glad it was an easy fix.

Have you made your sheet, @Quintin?

@JenniferSuggs?

How did you go, Ella?

Have you double-clicked on it to make sure it's really set to black?

It's very easy, but yes, you're right, you should have asked it first. You simply duplicate the Background layer, the turn on grids and Ctrl T to get the transform handles, and rotate until the horizon is straight. Then add a new blank layer and clone in the sides of the truck a bit: Then group those two layers (the rotated layer and the clone layer) and again, add a black mask to the group. Paint white to reveal the new straight horizon:

Exactly like so, yes. Now brighten the sky (add a Levels layer inside the group, above the sky layer).

Yeah, I like the idea of a sky swap here. Just make sure you don't let the replacement sky be too dark, or it won't be credible.

More than you know, yet!

In this case I would do a new merged layer above all your other layers (Cmd Opt Shift E). Then do the Liquifying on that layer. BUT, here's the important trick. After you've done the liquifying, but BEFORE pressing OK to exit the Liquify window, hit "Save Mesh": Save the mesh file with the same filename as your photo, so you don't lose it. After saving the mesh, press OK to commit the Liquifying. The reason we do this is in case you find you need to do other editing with your Levels layers or whatever. In that case, you'd need to delete your Liquify layer, you see? But that's ok, because you can re-do whatever Levels work needs doing, then make a new Liquify layer on top (Cmd Opt Shift E again) then go into Liquify filter, hit "Load Mesh" and restore the liquifying you did before. No need to do it over again. Is this making sense?

The trick to this is so easy you'll fall of your chair First, mask the entire sky with your brush. Ignore the gradient for now. Use the brush to fill in the entire sky, in the windows of the truck, along the horizon as accurately as possible. THEN, put the layer in a layer group by hitting Ctrl G. Add a mask to the group, and put the gradient on THAT mask.

Always make sure your tool is set to "Foreground to Transparent" not "Foreground to Background".