Create seamless patterns in Photoshop

Create seamless patterns in Photoshop has always been a fairly labor-intensive process but now Adobe has included a Pattern Preview mode which can speed up this whole process and make it a very creative way of working.

For those of you who want to just know how to do it, the recipe is below. For those that want a little more constructive detail, I have you covered too!

Create a seamless patterns in Photoshop

In Photoshop go to the top menu, View > Pattern Preview. This will extend your canvas as an instance so that you can now place imagery with transparent backgrounds across your canvas and see them populate as a pattern. Position your design elements as you wish. Once you are happy with the way your pattern looks go to Window > Patterns.  Click the Plus icon on the bottom right of the Pattern window. This will create a pattern swatch that you can use in any design. To use it simply make a new Photoshop document, and then drag the pattern swatch onto the canvas. You can now go to the layers panel, double click the pattern swatch thumbnail and edit the rotation and scale of the pattern.  

Now for the more detailed tutorial!

We will be creating the flower pattern that you see above which is essentially made out of vintage illustrations of flowers that have been cut out and then layered into place. It’s a fairly straightforward pattern that’s made even simpler with the Pattern Preview mode in Photoshop.

Step One: The Setup

Create a new canvas that’s 1080px by 1080px with 300 DPI. You can make this any size you like but I find that this size gives us good resolution and versatility within digital design use-cases. If you are planning on using your pattern for print then consider upping the resolution to 3000 x 3000 and a DPI of 300. This will give you a higher resolution to print from. Then let’s turn on the Pattern Preview mode. Go View > Pattern Preview. Once we get some images onto our canvas you will see how easy it is to make patterns!

Step Two: Cut out the images

I will be using a series of copy-right free vintage flowers that I have sourced. This pack is copy-right free and can be used for personal or commercial use. The images in this pack are already cut out and ready to go but if you are looking to use your own imagery then I will detail how to go about doing that.
There is no ‘best’ way to do this, it all depends on the image you are cutting out and the quality of edge you are after.

For lower resolution images such as these vintage flowers I have found it best to use the Pen Tool. Even though it takes the longest of all the methods, the cutout edge of the image is going to be more exact and clean.

This can take some time to cut out the various images you have so my advice to you is to look at the resolution of the images you want to use for your pattern. If they are lower resolution with pixilated edges then I would recommend the Pen Tool as it will give you the cleanest edge. If you have high res imagery then it’s better to try out some of the other methods of cutting out your image first as they are far faster and can give excellent results as long as the resolution is good.

Method One: Pen Tool

For a more complete guide in how to use the Pen Tool, take a look at our ultimate guide: The Ultimate Guide to the Pen Tool 

The Pen Tool is a popular go-to tool for many different techniques in Photoshop. And cutting out an image is one of them. Select your image in the layers panel, then in the Toolbar click the Pen Tool icon. Click on the edge of the image you are trying to cut out and drag as you click. This will give you bezier curve handles that you can use to make your path follow the edge of your image in a very exact way. Let the Pen Tool’s curved path do the work for you. You can get away with using fewer points for an object than you might think by adjusting the path as you go with the Bezier Curve Handles.

Some quick keyboard shortcuts for the Pen Tool are:

• P to select the Pen Tool from the Toolbar.
• Holding CMD or CTRL whilst using the Pen Tool will enable you to move the Bezier Curve Handles.
• Holding Alt while using the Pen Tool will enable you to click on a point and change it from a curved point to an angled point.

Draw your pen tool path around the image, right-click and select Make Selection. Then go up to the top menu bar of Photoshop and go Select >  Modify > Contract – then enter 1. This will move your selection in by one pixel, this is very helpful to remove any unwanted edge artifacts. Next go Select > Modify > Feather – then enter 0.5. This gives a subtle soft edge. The hard edge from the Pen Tool can really throw off a design so giving it a little softness is always a good idea.

Now you can either do Ctrl J to copy and paste this selection onto a new layer, or you can hit the mask icon at the bottom of the Layers panel. This is really useful if you want to alter the image’s look by painting into the mask itself.

Method Two: Quick Selection Tool

Select the image layer that you want to cut out from the Layers Panel. Hold down the Selection Icon in the Tool Bar and select the Quick Selection tool. You can now draw over the image with the Selection tool to create the selection. Hold Alt to remove part of the selection. Once you are happy with your selection go to the top menu, Select > Modify > Contract, and enter 1 to decrease the selection by one pixel to remove any artifacts. Then go Select > Modify > Feather and enter 0.5 to give a subtle feather to the edge. You can use Ctrl J or CMD J on Mac to create a new layer, or you can press the Mask icon at the bottom of the Layers panel for a non-destructive method.

Method Three: Auto Select

This method is great if you have a person to cut out as Photoshop’s artificial intelligence is excellent at identifying people/objects and cutting them out for you. Select the layer in your layers panel, in the Tool Bar click on the Selection icon or press W on the keyboard. Then on the top menu of Photoshop, it will say Select Subject. Click that and your selection is done. Use CTRL J or CMD J on mac to put it on a new layer or use the mask icon at the bottom of the Layers panel to create a non-destructive mask.

Method Four: Paint a Mask

Painting a mask to cut out an object is time-consuming but depending on the image you are cutting out it can be pretty useful. I would also recommend using a Wacom tablet or similar to speed this process up. It can be a great way to add to selections you created using another method.

Select the layer in the Layers Panel. At the bottom of the Layers Panel, click the mask icon to make a new mask. Click the mask icon, if you paint in black it will remove part of the image, if you paint in white it will reveal part of the image. Now the way that I use this masking technique is I use black to paint the object that I want – so essentially making it invisible and then once the whole object is invisible I do CTRL I or CMD I to invert the mask so that the Object is visible and the background is now invisible. I find it easier and quicker to work like this as it’s faster to paint just the object rather than the entire background.

Step Two: Position the Images

This is the fun part. Drag on to your canvas all of your cut-out images. It’s really up to you how you want to position these, so have fun! Play with scaling the images up and down, rotating them, and duplicating them to get more interesting patterns. You can also play with the background color itself to complement any branding that you are working with. In my case, I am using the Design Schools branding colors. So although this is the most important step – as in you are creating the pattern – it’s also the one with the least amount of information for me to give you. I encourage you to play and explore what kinds of patterns you can achieve. Lean into your own visual aesthetic.

Step Three: Add the Pattern

Now that you are happy with the pattern that you have created you can save it to the Pattern panel so that it is accessible within Photoshop and you can use it whenever you want. Go to Window > Patterns.  Click the Plus icon on the bottom right of the Pattern window. This will create a pattern swatch that you can use in any design.

Step Four: Use the Pattern

To use it simply make a new Photoshop document, and then drag the pattern swatch onto the canvas. You can now go to the Layers panel, double click the pattern swatch thumbnail and edit the rotation and scale of the pattern to your liking.  In my example image, I have layered on some illustrations that reference the same colors, so feel free to add to your design. Perhaps add text, photos illustrations etc.

Happy pattern-making!