We live in an age of endless post-production possibilities. At times, it may feel like it’s all been done before. During those times we must strive to break out of our button-pushing boxes and explore new avenues for our image making. I’d like to share with you one of my favorite ways to enhance images in post-production—the application of texture.Whether you shoot landscapes, portraits, or my favorite, humanitarian causes, utilizing texture in your images can lend a timeless feel, full of depth and emotion.

I was surprised to learn that items such as cloth, wire and glass, have been used in the traditional darkroom development process for some 80 years, most notably by artist and photographer William Mortensen who got his start in Hollywood. Thankfully, for today’s digital photographer, we’re able to employ the use of texture a bit quicker than Mr. Mortensen did and with less of a mess.

After struggling to find a streamlined and time efficient way to apply textures to my images, I teamed up with the action hero himself, Kevin Kubota, to try and solve the issue. Using a collection of textures I’ve photographed from various countries and combining them with Kevin’s extremely intuitive Dashboard™ technology, we created a product that allows you to quickly and creatively apply texture to your images, while giving customization tools along the way. By using Kubota Image Tools Bor-Tex (Borders and Textures) I’ve been able to spend less time in post, which means more time telling stories with my images. In this article, I’d like to show you how to do the same by adding a bit of texture to one of my favorite images from Rwanda.