Section 5 · Visual Language

Texture and Surface

Definition

The tactile quality of a surface as rendered visually — grain, noise, roughness, smoothness — including artifacts like compression noise and scan grain.

Why it matters

In collage, texture mismatch is a tell. Sources shot on different equipment, at different resolutions, or compressed differently will refuse to belong to the same image until their surfaces are reconciled.

Example

Adding uniform grain across a composite so a crisp digital element and a scanned photograph share a surface.