Filling a blended texture into a rectangular strip in Adobe Photoshop CC

Question

I am creating a texture for a 3D model, and I am trying to get the right texture for this stem of a plant. My end goal is to create an even rectengular strip of this texture without any highlights, dark spots or shadows.

The photo below shows the stem as it was photographed.

I see that only the middle component of the stem is what I want to use for my texture, so I selected the whole stem only by using the Quick Selection Tool, I then went onto to Select -> Modify and Contract and narrowed the selection by about 50px. I use the inner part of the stem, because the outer part is very dark, its in a shadow or has highlights.

I then copy that selection twice, and one of the copies I move up and the other down, this way they cover the outer parts of the stem, as shown in the photo below.

Here is the point where I need some help. How can I blend or make the texture consistent without having the seams from the copies. I would like to have it consistent throughout the whole stem without having any sharp edges or seams. I tried to blend them together, but did not get anywhere. I also played around with Blurs but it didn't help much either, since I was loosing detail in the texture by making it blury. I finally tried the Spot Healing Brush, which seemed to give me the results I desired, but it lacked consistency and it did not always give the result I wanted. Below is a photo after using the Spot Healing Brush for a small part of the stem.

This is the kind of consistency and texture quality I would like to have throughout the stem. While the Spot Healing Brush produced some good results, it did not seem to be the one that would work.

How can I make this happen in Photoshop CC in a faster, more efficient and higher quality result ? Finally, if possible I would like to make an even rectangular strip and fill it up with this "texture". This is because the stem has a irregular shape from one end to the other, and by making the texture be confined to an even rectangle, it will work better for 3D unwrapping. Also, the stem changes color as it goes from left to right, it gets darker, I would like to keep that consistency throughout. Below is an image of how I would like the rectangular strip with the texture filled in to be like.

Thank You very much! All help and suggestions are appreciated. I might even be doing the whole process wrong, so if anyone has any other or better ways to set this up, please share your answers. Greatly appreciated it!

Answer 1

Here's what I'd do....

Start by separating the stem to it's own layer if it isn't already.

Enlarge the stem layer to a decent size to see that inner texture. I chose to ignore the dark right side and focused on the clearer, mid-toned, left side. The enlargement was done because the starting image I had (taken from the question) was small. If your image is actually larger you may not need the reduction/enlargement steps.

Use the Clone Stamp and Healing tools to create a "block" of texture at one end...

Select this block, copy to a new layer, then duplicate and move to fill the area...

Fix any seams (I skipped this step)

Merge the copied layers so there is a single layer of texture. Turn off visibility for any other layers. Then reduce the texture back to where it originally was, or close to it.

Repeat the duplicating and moving to fill the area with this new, smaller, texture.

Fix any seams (Again, I skipped any seam repair for this example. Seams aren't readily apparent, but that's pure happenstance. I didn't double-check them.)

That should result in a single layer of relatively uniform texture.

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Please be aware, this is a quick example to show methodology. The goal was not to create a usable final image. The cloning/healing I created was done quickly and without a great deal of care. And, as posted, I didn't really pay any attention to seams anywhere. Much more attention to detail should be used for any final image.