Creating tiles from rotated elements

Question

I have visited a page discussing the calculations required to rotate an image for tiling purposes. I am still very stuck. I've even tried using the automated tool inside the G'MIC plugin in GIMP.

This is the single bucket I am starting with:

This is the result I'm trying to achieve:

I need the buckets to line up when tiled.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

For Photoshop....

• Create a selection around the upright bucket.
• Choose Edit > Define Pattern
• Create a new layer in the document you want the pattern applied to.
• Fill the new layer with any any color and then set the layer Fill opacity to zero
• Choose Layer > Layer Style > Pattern Overlay
• Select the bucket pattern you just defined, and click OK
• Choose Layer > Smart Objects > Convert to Smart Object
• Rotate the pattern smart object layer

If you find after rotation that your pattern does not cover the entire document area, simply double-click the smart object pattern layer and increase the canvas size in that document.

Unfortunately Photoshop offers no ability to rotate patterns. Hard to believe. That's a feature that should absolutely be implemented but until it is this workaround has been good for me. There's no real reason to create a pattern at a specific angle in this case. It's often easier to simply apply a straight pattern, then rotate the layer or smart object.