Page 178 - Enhancing CAD Drawings with Photoshop

4386.book Page 162 Monday, November 15, 2004 3:27 PM

162 CHAPTER 5 PRESENTING PLANS

Figure 5.26
The tilable walnut pat-
tern: compare this with
Figure 5.24.

Creating a Custom Pattern Library
Now that you have generated a tilable pattern, you can save it in a custom pattern library. I recom-
mend either creating a new pattern library for each project or, if you have loads of patterns, catego-
rizing them into an organizational structure that makes sense for the type of work you are doing.
For example, you might make pattern libraries for stone, wood, carpet, brick, and other real-world
materials. In this example, we will create a single pattern library and populate it with a few patterns
needed for the Kitchen project in the next section. You will begin by cleaning out the default library
of all its patterns so you can start fresh with your own custom patterns.
1. Choose the Paint Bucket tool (press G), and select Pattern in the Fill drop-down on the Options
bar. Click the drop-down menu to open the Pattern Picker. Right-click a pattern and choose
Delete Pattern from the context menu. Repeat this process, and delete every single pattern in
the default library.

NOTE You will be restoring the patterns you delete from the default pattern library later; these pat-
terns will not be lost. Clearing these out, though, lets you create a new pattern library that contains
only your custom-defined patterns.
2. Click the WalnutPattern window to activate it. Choose Edit Define Pattern to open the Pattern
Name dialog box. In the Name box, type Walnut and click OK to add this pattern to the empty
library.

NOTE This time you are saving a tilable version of the Walnut pattern to the library.

3. Open the files BlueCarpet.jpg, CeramicTile.jpg, and Mahogany.jpg from the companion
CD (see Figure 5.27). These tilable images are ready to go into your pattern library.