Top 40 Background and Texture Tutorials and Resources

Attractive backgrounds and textures are a must for just about all websites, graphics, applications or ads these days.  Whether they are subtle, abstract, grunge or retro; backgrounds and textures can add depth, style and interest to your designs if done correctly.  Below you will find the top 40 tutorials and resources on how to make great backgrounds and textures in Photoshop. Drop me a comment and let me know what you think.

For more information, see 40 Awesome Websites with Big Backgrounds

Grungy Metal Texture
In this tutorial learn how to create a really nice looking grungy metal texture.

Abstract Background of Colored Bars

Colourful swirl

Stripy abstract wallpaper in Photoshop
This tutorial will show you how to create a stripy abstract wallpaper from scratch in just a few steps.

Create a Nature Inspired Painted Background in Photoshop
Learn how to make a background just grabs and pulls the reader right in

Creating Chameleon Effect Fabric Texture
Create this beautiful multi toned texture in Photoshop

Realistic Stone Texture

Chroma Wallpapers
How to create a energetic, vibrant, colorful wallpaper

Amazing wooden texture/background
This tutorial will teach you a basic but effective way to complete this desired outcome, which would work great as a background.

The lightning effect
Develop cool lightning effects for your background

Create Carbon Fibre Pattern
Here’s how you can create a carbon fibre pattern and use them in any designs, all with Photoshop.

MSNBC Style Effect Background
Create an effect like the one in the header of the MSNBC.com website.

Retro Grid Background
This tutorial shows you how to create Photoshop Retro Grid Background for your Web Layout.

Creating A Watermark
This tutorial will teach you how to create a professional watermark on any image you like.

Create a Retro Photo and Background
Take a regular, boring photo and liven it up using with some effects to give it more of a retro feel to it. We are then going to take the photo and create a background for it to lie on.

Awesome digital bokeh effect
The process is very easy and we will be using the super powerful Brush Engine, one of the coolest things in Photoshop.

Metal Texture Tutorial
Learn how to create this full realistic metal texture in Photoshop.

Realistic denim (jean) texture from scratch
In this photoshop tutorial, I play with some filter and layer style option to create a surreal jean texture from scratch.

Creating a Mac-Type Background in Photoshop
This tutorial is about making a “mac” style background. You can use these in all sorts of situations, including the obvious –your desktop– as well as part of your designs or for corporate work

Fabric Folds Texture Tutorial
Learn to create a background image that looks like multiple folds of silk fabric. This is a great effect and technique for your collage artwork, as it is easy to blend or fade in with other elements of a collage piece.

The Ultimate Wood Tutorial
In this tutorial, we are going to create a wood texture and apply some artwork on top of it that has an aged paint feel.

Create a Wavy Blackberry Style Wallpaper
The design has a cool wavy pattern with interesting lighting effects, like the Blackberry 9000 wallpaper.

Creating Pixel Sharp Diagonal 45-degree Scanlines Patterns with Photoshop
The tutorial below shows you an easy way to create two different pixel sharp 45-degree scanline patterns for use as Photoshop patterns.

Space Lighting Effects
So in this Photoshop tutorial I will show you how to create a space scene with some nice Lighting Effects in 10 Steps.

Creating Your Own Organic Textured Backgrounds
The challenge in making textured backgrounds is finding the right assets, having the right tone to match the content on your site, and being patient enough to keep experimenting. There are so many combinations out there, I would love to see what everyone comes up with.

Designing Flower Texture
Design a cool close up flower background

Digital Star Effect
Turn a regular photo into a high-tech digital artwork.

Create an Abstract Retro-Pop Wallpaper
In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to create a beautiful, vibrant, Retro-Pop abstract wallpaper. You’ll also learn how to add some wonderful texture to your designs and make some abstract shapes!

Resources

Ultimate Guide for Creating High Quality Textures
A step by step guide for creating amazing textures.

How to Turn a Texture into a Seamlessly Tiled Background?
Take a texture and turning it into a background image ready for seamless tiling.

Calculations and Colorization
Learn how to create an Alpha Channel using the Calculations dialog and use it to get a really great abstract photo effect.

Controlling background images and colours
Learn how to use CSS properties to add background images and colour to your Web pages.

Repeating Seamless Background Image Tutorial
A trick often employed on webpages is to use a seamless background that can tile both vertically and horizontally.

29 Great Free Textures
From organic to metal rust, this list has lots of great textures.

Brown Paper Textures
5 Fantastically Free High Res Brown Paper Textures created by Blog Spoon Graphics

Add Texture to Improve Artwork
In this little Photoshop tutorial you will learn how to design a quick art piece, then add some texture to it, this is to demonstrate the use of texture in artwork

How to design the perfect Twitter background
An overview of various types of Twitter background, good read to make the right decision about how you will design your own background.

Great Textures from Colorburned
Different textures in various categories