by Don Herion

Creating a image that can be seamlessly tiled for a background can be a daunting task. This is especially true for a complex image like the one below.

1) Open the image you want to tile. My choice is an image of M & Ms at 200 pixels x 150 pixels. As you can see there is some garbage on the side of the image. You will also want to maintain the identical width and height for your tile image. Use your 'Cropping' tool to resample the image to 150 pixels x 150 pixels.

Original image. Crop to 150 x 150.

Cropped image

As you can see tiling the existing image results in a seam.

Tiled before editing

2) To begin creating our seamless tile go - Filter - Other - Offset. Use Horizontal and Vertical settings equal to half those of the image (75 x 75). Make certain - 'Wrap Around' - is checked. You now have 4 unsightly seams.

Result of Offset	Offset Palette

3) Now all you need to do is remove the four seams. Easier said then done, right? Wrong. The 'rubber stamp' tool is your ticket. This powerful tool allows you to copy part of an image and basically stamp it in all over another section of the same image. After selecting the 'rubber stamp' tool pick a soft edged brush. I used one about the size of an M & M. Zoom in 300%. Now place the tool over part of the image you want to select and press the - Alt - key. Now begin to carefully stamp along the seams. If you don't like the initial result - Undo - and resample another part of the image. Be careful around the edges! You only want to stamp near the edge, not over it or the image will never seam properly. This can be a time consuming process. Be patient. It took me about thirty minutes before I was satisfied. Don't hesitate to use the - Filter - Offset - command to quickly preview your progress.

Use the 'rubber stamp' tool

4) Below is the results of my hard work. Hint: For an image like this one you can also clean up by copying individual M & Ms and pasting them over trouble spots.