Photoshop Cave Painting

Today I finished my first digital art assignment at Full Sail University. For my Art History class, I was assigned to make a "prehistoric"-style cave painting in Photoshop.

This activity taught me a few things about Photoshop. I'll briefly show you how I made the rock wall, added texture, and created a light source.

1. Rock Wall

First, open a new document in Photoshop.

Then, set your foreground and background colors to a light and dark color for your rock wall.

Go to Filter, Render, and select Clouds.

To add a touch of realism, add some noise.

2. Add Texture

Switch over to channels.

Create a new channel. It will be called "Alpha 1". 

Go to Filter, Render, and select Difference Clouds. Then, continue to select Difference Clouds until you get a pattern you like.

This texture will be applied to the rock wall in a second; but first, we need to add a light.

3. Light source

Switch back over to layers. Then, go to Filter, Render, and select Lighting Effects.

This cool lighting tool will then come up. You can adjust the size of this light, its intensity, its shape, its color, and more, until you get it to the effect you want. 

Then, before you hit "okay" on the light, go to the properties panel, click on "Textures", and select "Alpha 1."

You will then have a very rocky-looking texture from your Alpha 1 channel. You can adjust the height to make it very subtle, or very rough. Play around with it and see what you can make!