how to apply textures in blender 2.70+ cycles

 applying textures in blender cycles.

hi,in this tutorial i'll cover the process to apply textures in blender with cycles
i'm using simple objects as this is for begginers ,so i just added a cube and scaled it along the Y and Z axes, what i'm trying to do is a wall,as seen below

now we need to go to uv image editor window,once there go to edit mode press A to deselect , pressing A again to select everything then U, a pop up will appear and we have different options for unwrap,the best and quick option will be smart uv proyect but we'll create our seams,

to create seams use edge selection and select the edges as seen below,to select several edges hold shift.

 now press and hold control+E and select mark seam,this will create red marks that represents where the image will be cut

pressing A to select everything then U and select unwrap,in the left window we can see the uv islands ,this represents our model as a 2d image

now we need to upply the texture,i'll be using a brick texture,you can find free textures on the web,i recommend cgtextures.com,
to add the texture go to materials and add a new one, then, click the button beside color ,in the pop up select image texture,then in material properties click open  and select the image we want to apply.

switch to uv image texture window,here select the model and go into edit mode,in the left window we need to select the image so we can see it, we can move the islands with G and rotate with R ,in the left window,this way we can adjust the texture as we like.

and finally we have applied the texture,also to see the texture in real time in our viewport we need to select texture in viewport shading.

now we can render the scene, to render the scene go to render tab and select render.