CoffeeShop “White Elephant” Fine Art Texture and Photoshop Tutorial

I just made this new texture and I am in love with it! It can be quite subtle but absolutely gorgeous on the right images. I find myself using it on florals and baby portraits, but you can use it on many other types of images.

A special thanks to Lisa Rubel Photography (website, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter) for allowing me to use her stunning baby image in this tutorial. You can find the floral image here.

I wrote a little tutorial on using this texture in Photoshop/PSE on baby portraits. You can download the free “White Elephant” texture towards the bottom of this post.

CoffeeShop “White Elephant” Texture on Baby Portrait Tutorial:

This is the gorgeous original image from Lisa Rubel. 

I added the “White Elephant” texture on top in 100% Soft Light blending mode. I want to remove this texture from her skin while leaving the texture color.

If I added a layer mask and just painted the texture off her skin, she would look too dark against the background.

First step is to select the baby. There are so many ways to do this, but on an image with a simple background like this one there is a clever little tool in Photoshop. 

Turn off the texture layer and click to select the baby image.

Click “W” to grab your magic wand and then look at the selection menubar. Click the “Select Subject” button.

Magically, the baby is selected!

Turn back on the texture layer and make sure it is selected.

Then use the Gaussian Blur filter to smooth out the texture while retaining the pretty ivory color.

If you want to add more texture, simply copy the texture layer and adjust that layer’s opacity to taste.

She turned out gorgeous, right? It really brightened her skin and the texture looks so pretty on the background.

I would love to see your own edits using this texture on my Facebook page!


Download the CoffeeShop “White Elephant” Fine Art Texture.

Do you want to download my favorite CoffeeShop PSE/Photoshop Actions and Lightroom Presets or Design Elements in one convenient zipped file AND help support this blog? Just click here for my action pack or here for all the actions/presets and professional design elements, storyboards, and textures.

For complete info on installing all of my actions, click here.