: How do I make patches like these? Was wondering how to make patches with effects like these (is it called embroidered?) in Photoshop. Other software are fine too! Always looking to expand my

@Bethany839

If you have created the linked (Imgur) patches, know that they do not become better with some easy Photoshop trickery. They already are very fine job! Maybe you can borrow the hairy edge of a real patch and add it.

You have used masked canvas textures and added light and shadow, all well done. What's missing? My opinion: You need shapes where the pattern is knitted along curved forms. That needs a program, where you can use pattern brushes which put shapes along curves. It's well visible in your images:



Illustrator accepts vector shapes to be inserted to the brush collection as pattern brushes. Draw manually or vectorize from a photo a short horizontal knitted pattern with matching ends. When dragged to the brush collection, you can draw any curve with it.

Vectorized photos are heavy load, I suggest you draw the knitted patterns to keep Illustrator unglogged.

The created shape can be copied and pasted to photoshop and used as the canvas textures. The difference is that fine patterns follow curves.

Affinity Designer allows to use PNG images directly as a brush for vector curves. You do not have the load of vectorized shapes. Unfortunately A.designer still has limited tools to draw the vector shapes. There is no blending to create gradually morphed copies between 2 curves, which I see essential for this as work saver.

To stay in truth, you can have same pattern in different angles in Photoshop and simulate curves with polylines, but that is a hard way to work.

Finally a screenshot from Affinity Designer. There's a piece of knitted pattern It's a PNG with transparent background, taken from a photo. It's quite long, but that's good for avoiding repeating looks. It's inserted to Brushes and applied to a random curve and one A character.

The width (=pattern size) and color are freely adjustable and the curve is still an editable path. I have left a copy of the path visible.

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