We have quite a selection of Tiles for you here; all are our original designs and are not available elsewhere.  Some you may like, others not. 

 Shortcut to the Tiles

Many are the result of experimentation rather than any deliberate plan, and - because it's so  easy to forget these things - we wrote up what we did as we went along.  The write-ups are included here, in an expanded/tarted-up form as tutorials (for want of a better word), as they may be of interest to others.  We hope they're of some help.
 Tiles Tutorial #1

. . . with more to come in due course

Go right ahead and download as many of the Tiles as you like; they're free for non-commercial use, although we retain copyright.  We ask only one thing of you; as a matter of courtesy if nothing else, please read our Terms of Use before downloading - and always honour them afterwards. 
 Terms of Use

Our Tiles fall into three categories . . .

1.  

Designs created directly with, or derived from, the use of our own Presets for Super BladePro (SBP).  SBP is a plug-in filter for all graphics software packages capable of using PhotoShop-compatible filters.

If you want to find out more about SBP go have a look at the 'Super BladePro' section of this Gallery.  There's a tutorial on using SBP, plus full details of our freely downloadable Presets.

2.  

Designs reproducing or adapted from traditional Japanese repeating patterns, originally created for our Japanese Designs Gallery.  Go to that Gallery's 'Japanese Patterns' section for background information on the patterns - their origins, names, history, etc.

3.  

Neither of the above!   In other words, a mix of odds and ends.

This page's main background - a sort of olive ruched silk - is generated from one of our Tiles.  It was built by "playing around" with a design created with Super BladePro, using a Preset from our own Series EG-012.  You will find the Tile itself, plus notes on how it was built, in this Gallery.

The font used in the 'Seamless Tiles' banner at the top of this page is "Miele", downloadable from www.themeworld.com/fonts - and probably other font sites.  The maker is unknown to us (whoever you are, thanks for building it!) so if you have any information or think our use of the font is breaking anyone's copyright, please e-mail relevant details to us.  The text was decorated with - yes, you've guessed it - SBP and is made up of two images using PhotoShop layers.  For the top layer, at 41% opacity, we applied our own Preset EG-005a to a white image.  For the second layer, we applied our own Preset EG-018a, again to a white image, then bevelled it by applying the Preset 'Inlay' from Aesthetic Web Creations (an extremely useful preset which we probably use more than any other; they're well worth a visit at www.aestheticweb.com).

This section of the Gallery has a very simple structure.  Each of the tiles in the panels below is representative of a range of Tiles following a particular style.  Some styles consist of a small handful of Tiles, others a couple of dozen or (very many) more.  Every sample links to a series of one or more Preview Pages which open in a new window, and together show the complete range of Tiles in that style.  As a general rule, we've sequenced the Tiles by colour.

Each Preview Page is limited to 10-40 Tiles, depending on their size, with a background generated from one of them.  This limit is partly to minimise Pages' loading times; we've tried to restrict total Page size to around 45Kb.  The main reason, though, is to allow plenty of space in the window for you to view the Tiles as wallpaper - you can click on any Tile to view it as wallpaper; the window's background will change accordingly.

NOTE

The "view Tile as wallpaper" facility is provided by a little bit of coding added for each Tile to the Page's HTML.  Unfortunately it seems to work only with Microsoft's Internet Explorer; other main-stream browsers like Netscape Navigator and Opera simply ignore it.  With several Tiles on a Preview Page, here's the coding we use for each Tile . . .

<A onClick="document.body.background='EG-Tile.gif'"><IMG SRC="EG-Tile.gif"></A>

. . . where "EG-Tile.gif" is the Tile graphic's file name and the added "view Tile as wallpaper" coding is shown in red.  Nothing complicated about that, is there?  So why can't Netscape, Opera, et al, handle it?

We've been unable to come up with anything which works across all  the main browsers, so if anyone out there has a solution, we'd be delighted to hear from you!

In the meantime, if you don't have Internet Explorer but want to get the most out of this Web Site and its Galleries, why not install it on your computer?  It's available as a free  download from Microsoft - and you don't have to even like  Bill Gates (but he does look rather cuddly, doesn't he?).  Just use this link . . .
Link to Microsoft for Internet Explorer

So, if one of the sample Tiles catches your eye, just click on it to open the style's first Preview Page of Tiles.  Where a style has more than one Preview Page, each has navigation buttons to enable you to move forwards and backwards through the other Pages.  When you've had enough, just close the Preview Page's window.

If you want to use one of our Tiles, please DOWNLOAD IT.  Just right-click on it and select "Save Picture As" from the drop-down menu, then "Save" to any appropriate folder ON YOUR OWN COMPUTER'S hard disk.  You can then include the Tile with your Web Site's other files when uploading to your host.  NEVER EVER link to a Tile on THIS Web Site for use on YOUR Web Site; that's bandwidth theft and is a real no-no - refer to our Terms of Use.

Please ENJOY our Tiles!

THE TILES

Created with Super BladePro using our own Presets

Series EG-006
64 Tiles giving a rough woven fabric effect reminiscent of tweed, mostly in earth tones.  All were created simply by applying the Presets to images of various colours; no "clean-up" of the results was needed.
The pattern repeat is 36×36 pixels.  All the Tiles are double-width, 72×36, and average 3·0Kb in size.

Series EG-012
Here we have a series of Presets capable of giving some lovely results, some might say stunning (well, we  think so).  HOWEVER . . .  There's a sort  of repeat pattern at c.72×33 pixels but it's far from perfect, and others at larger sizes but with very poor horizontal colour matching.

It seemed a shame to waste such potential, so we played around with the results to see if we could make some useable Tiles of moderate size.  We succeeded!   The main background for this page is just one example.

Most of the Tiles from our experiments are available here; only the real  rubbish has been left out!  If you want to see how we produced them, have a look at our tutorial based on notes we kept at the time.
 Tiles Tutorial #1

In practice, there are several series of Tiles here - some vibrant, some subtle, in varying colours and shades of light and dark, and in various sizes - but we've kept them together as they all come from the same source.  This "super series" consists of c.450 Tiles spead across 33 Preview Pages.

You don't have  to start at Page 1 and plough through the whole lot!  Have a look at the panels below showing samples from each "sub-series"; just click on a sample to go straight to the first Preview Page of the sub-series.

EG-012 - Preview Pages 1 to 11   (83 Tiles)
"The Originals", more or less direct from our SBP Presets.  A number gave results suggesting a DNA double-helix, some on speed, others heavily into bondage!   Weird!
Size - 144×33 pixels and (mostly) 3·1Kb - 4·2Kb.


dark / mellow


light / vibrant

EG-012 - Preview Page 12   (30 Tiles)
Cropped slices of some "Originals" with a little "pixel tuning" for a few, giving polychrome diamond checks and semi-tartans.  Size - 38×33 pixels and 0·6Kb - 1·3Kb.

EG-012 - Preview Pages 13 to 15   (56 Tiles)
More cropped slices of some "Originals", this time a bit like coiled concertinas!   Relatively subdued colours for the most part, with light, medium and dark sets.  Rather good, even if we say so ourselves!   Size - 50×33 pixels and 1·6Kb - 1·7Kb.

EG-012 - Preview Page 16   (24 Tiles)
Yet more cropped slices, these from a single "Original".  All were developed by embossing after cropping, then wreaking havoc with tonal range and colour balance.  Somewhat similar in style to the previous set, but here in rich brooding colours.  We're particularly pleased with this little group.  Size - 40×28 pixels and 1·1Kb - 1·8Kb.







EG-012 - Preview Pages 17 to 24   (189 Tiles)
The main background on this page is from this sub-series - suggestive of ruched or gathered silk?  All are 50% size reductions of a few "Originals", with many additions through tonal adjustment, colour replacement, etc.  The reason for the large number is that they're all from our Second and Third Exercises in Tutorial #1; do take the time to have a look, as it explains how we made them.  Size - 72×17 pixels, averaging 1·6Kb.

EG-012 - Preview Pages 25 to 32   (61 Tiles)
One of "The Originals", embossed and then colour-adjusted, giving some very attractive and subtle reeded effects.  Size - 144×28 pixels and 0·8Kb - 1·5Kb.

EG-012 - Preview Page 33   (18 Tiles)
A rag-bag of styles which don't really fit in anywhere else.  These are from a few of the "Originals", variously texturised, colour-adjusted, and generally mucked about with.  Some could be taken for rather coarse (and sometimes garish, to our taste) painted canvas, or very loosely suggestive of "modernist" plaster-work.  Others?  Well, use your imagination!   Size - various, 2·1Kb - 5·9Kb.

Series EG-017
110 Tiles giving a rich brocade fabric effect in various shades, some strong, some subtle.  The great majority were created simply by applying the Presets to images of various colours.  No "clean-up" of the results was needed, although a few were subject to some minor colour tweaking.

A couple of the "straight" Tiles were also put through some pretty serious texturising and colour adjustment, to give a dozen somewhat different results suggesting heavy woven tapestry (or even pile carpet) instead of brocade!   You'll find these on the last Preview Page.

The pattern repeat is 33×33 pixels.  All the Tiles are double-width, 66×33, and averaging 2·8Kb in size.

Japanese Designs

Sorry - nothing yet

In due course, selected designs will be offered from our
Japanese Designs Gallery, which is still under construction

Please come back later

Odds and Ends

EG-Paper
42 small Tiles (20×32 pixels, c.0·3Kb) in three groups - 14 each of light, medium and dark - simulating hand-made paper.  Ideal for use as backgrounds to text, as shown in the sample panels below.

Light
Highly effective for use with dark  text (this is dark green, RGB 0:48:0).

Medium
Best with very dark text - and possibly very light text - of a contrasting  colour (this is dark blue, RGB 0:0:51).

Dark
Ideal for use with light  text (this is white).


EG-Twill
30 small Tiles (28×28 pixels, most only 0·1Kb, a few 0·9Kb).  More lines, really, but here they look like cavalry twill.   The design is simply a 1-pixel slice of another Tile in this Gallery, cropped and duplicated to develop a regular vertical pattern, then colour-adjusted.  Some should be OK as backgrounds for text.