1. First create a new document by pressing Ctrl+N. I set the dimensions 200 by 150 pixels, and the contents transparent for this tutorial, but the bigger the better.

2. Set the foreground color to a color of your choice. I used a shade a of blue. You can use the swatches palette (Window > Show Swatches) for quick color picking. Press Shift+F5, and click OK to fill the workspace with the foreground color.

3. The Add Noise filter is often a good way to start a new texture. Apply the Add Noise filter (Filter > Noise > Add Noise) with the following settings:
   Amount: 50
   Distribution: Gaussian
   Monochromatic: Checked

4. Apply the Angled Strokes filter (Filter > Brush Strokes > Angled Strokes) with the following settings:
   Direction Balance: 70
   Stroke Length: 20
   Sharpness: 2

   We have now completed the first layer of our texture. Looks nice but not very interesting.

5. Create a new layer by clicking on the new layer icon () in the Layers palette. Set the foreground color white. Press Shift+F5 to bring the Fill dialog box, and hit OK to fill the newly created layer with the foreground color. Now repeat step 3.

6. Repeat step 4. But you will notice that the angle of the strokes will be reversed as compared to the first layer. To correct this, use Edit > Transform > Flip Horizontal. Finally, apply the Rough Pastels filter (Filter > Artistic > Rough Pastels) to add a little irregularity.

   Now what we have is two almost identical layers with one big difference: the top layer is grayscale while the bottom layer is in color.

7. Double click on the grayscale layer to bring the Layer Options dialog box. We will now change the blending of our two layers based on the values of individual pixels. By dragging the right slider below "This Layer" to the left (or to darker values), we tell Photoshop to show only the darker pixels of this layer and mask the rest. As you see there is a reason why we made this layer grayscale. As a matter of fact, you can use a color other than white to create this layer in steps 5 and 6 as long as there are no other colors on the layer. Otherwise you may get unexpected results. The good thing is that those unexpected results may look interesting. So when you are finished with this tutorial, give it a try. :)
   

8. If you are satisfied with the result, you must merge the layers by using Layer > Merge Visible. After doing that, you can either leave the texture as is or continue to play on it. For example here I applied the Add Noise filter again, but this time with half amount (25).

As a final note, textures look lifeless unless you add light to the scene. Doesn't it look much better this way?

If you took a look at other Photoshop tutorials in the Power Guides section, you might have already noticed that this tutorial explains how the background texture used in the last figure of the elevated type tutorial was done. It took some time to rediscover how exactly I had done it, but I couldn't let down a fellow Wow Web Designs user who kindly asked me how I did that "shadowed bluish streaky background".

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