1. Open a new document in Photoshop. Fill the canvas with white. Press D to change the fore and background colors to Black and White.
2. With your blank canvas open, select the Gradient tool.
3. Open the Gradient Editor and set the gradient from Black to White (By default, the black to white gradient should be the square in the top left corner of the Presets section).
3. Make sure the Mode is set to Difference and the Opacity is set to 70%.
Note your gradient needs to be set to linear gradient.
4. Now with the Gradient Tool, click and drag from the top left of the canvas to the bottom right.
5. There should now be a gradient going from light to dark at a diagonal direction.
6. Now with the Gradient Tool, click and drag from the lower right of the canvas to the top left. Do not make all your gradients the same size, use small, medium and large gradients.
7. Simply repeat steps 4 through 6 over and over again. What you will get are many different types of folds that look like fabric.
8. You can goto Image > Adjustments > Color Balance. Adjust the color sliders to give the fabric folds some color.
Making a folds overlay.
If you find a photo of fabric folds that you like.
Open the photo up in photoshop.
Duplicate the layer
Desaturate it with the shortcut Shift+Ctrl+U.
Save as a png file.
You can use the whole file or just cut out a fold that you want to manipulate on your texture.
On the layers window
Change to overlay, soft light or hard light depending on the texture that is underneath and adjust the opacity to the desired level. Even use the smudge tool to blur the boarders.
Before Photo:
With Overlay of fabric photo applied.
