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Place An Image In Text With Photoshop - Step by Step – Transcript
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Summary
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- Steve Patterson demonstrates how to place an image inside text using clipping masks in Photoshop.
- The text layer is placed below the image layer, and a clipping mask is applied so the image only appears over the text letters.
- Free transform is used to resize and reposition the text, and kerning allows adjusting the spacing between individual letters.
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well hi everyone Steve Patterson here from Photoshop essentials.com in this video we'll learn how to create one of photoshop's most popular and classic effects placing an image inside text as we'll see thanks to the power of clipping masks placing any image inside text with Photoshop is simple and easy I'll be using Photoshop CC here but you can follow along with any recent version
of Photoshop and if you're watching this video on our webs site you also have access to the text version so you can watch the video or read through the steps anytime you like thanks for joining me and let's get started so the first thing we need to do is open the image we want to place inside our text and here's the image I'll be using I downloaded this one from Adobe stock if we look in the layers panel we can see the image sitting on the background
layer which is currently the only layer in the document we need to make a copy of this layer to do that go up to the layer menu in the menu bar along the top of the screen choose new and then choose layer via copy you can also press the keyboard shortcut contrl J on a Windows PC or command J on a Mac either way it won't look like anything has happened to the image but if we look again in the
layers panel we can see that photoshop has made a copy of the background layer named the copy layer 1 and placed it above the background layer next next let's fill our document with a solid color which we'll use as the background for the effect for that we'll use one of photoshop's solid color fill layers to add one click on the new fill or adjustment layer icon at the bottom of
the layers panel then choose solid color from the top of the list right away we see that our document is now filled with a solid color in this case black I'm actually going to choose white as the background for my effect so to choose white I'll click in the upper left corner of the Color Picker I could also choose white by setting the r g and B values which stand for red green and
blue each to 255 I'll click okay to close out of the Color Picker and now we can see that my document is filled with white and if we look in the layers panel we see our solid color fill layer named color fill 1 sitting above the image layers because the solid color fill layer is sitting above the images it appears in front of them in the document which is
why it's currently blocking the images from view we actually need the solid color fill layer to be below layer 1 so click on the solid color fill layer and drag it down until you see a white highlight bar appear below layer One release your mouse button and Photoshop drops the layer into place at this point point we're ready to add our text click
on layer one to select it then select the type tool from the toolbar with the type tool selected choose your font options in the options bar along the top of the screen now since our goal is to place an image within the text generally fonts with thick letters will work best for this tutorial I'll choose something simple I'll go with
Ariel and black for now I'm going to set the size of my text to the largest size that I can choose from the presets here in the options bar which is 72 points but don't worry too much about the size of your text for now because we're going to manually resize it when we're done now this next step isn't absolutely necessary but to help us see the text as
we're adding it let's set our type color to white if your type color is already set to white or it's set to some other color that you can easily see in front of your image you can skip this step to change the type color click on the color swatch in the options bar this again opens the Color Picker I'll choose white by clicking in the upper left corner of the square or by
setting the RG and B values each to 255 then I'll click okay so with your type tool selected your font options chosen in the options bar and your text color set to White click inside the document and add your text now since I'm pretty sure this image was taken in Hawaii I'm going to type the word Hawaii then to accept the text I'll
click on the check mark in the options bar now at the moment the text is appearing in front of the image and if we look in the layers panel we can see our newly added type layer sitting above layer 1 since the type layer is above the image the text appears in front of the image in the document we actually need the type layer to appear below layer one so click on the type layer and
drag it down until you see that white highlight border appear and then release your mouse button and now the type layer is sitting below the image on layer one and because of that the image is now blocking the text from View at this point we're ready to place the image inside the text and to do that we'll use a clipping mask select layer one in the
layers panel then click on the menu icon in the upper right corner of the layers panel and choose create clipping mask from the menu and just like that our image now appears inside the text if we look in the layers panel we can see that layer one is now clipped we can see that little arrow there pointing down at the text layer below it which tells us that
layer one is clipped to the type layer below it and what that means is that the only part of the image on layer one that's still visible in the document is the area that's sitting directly over one of the letters in our text the rest of the image that's not sitting above one of the letters is Now hidden from View and in its place we're seeing the
white from our solid color fill layer so at this point we need to resize and reposition the text and we can do both of those things using photoshop's free transform command first select the type layer in the layers panel then go up to the edit menu and choose free transform and this places photoshop's free transform box and handles around
the text to resize the text click on any of the corner handles and drag it outward notice though that as I'm dragging I'm also distorting the look or the shape of the letters to keep their original shape as I'm resizing the text I'll press and hold the shift key on my keyboard and that locks in their original shape now if I want to resize the text
from its Center rather than from the opposite corner I'll keep my shift key held down and I'll also press and hold the ALT key on my keyboard and that's on a Windows PC on a Mac I'd press and hold the option key so that's shift alt on a Windows PC or shift option on a Mac and then I'll continue dragging out the corner handles and now we can see that I'm resizing the text
from its Center to reposition the text I'll release my keys on the keyboard and then I'll simply click inside the free transform box and drag the text into position again I'll press and hold shift alt or shift option on a Mac and I'll drag the corner handles outward when you're happy with the size and position of your text press the check mark in the
options bar to accept it now one thing I'm not too happy with at this point is that I think there's too much space between the letters to fix that with my type tool still selected I'll click between two of the letters that I want to adjust in this case the A and the W then to adjust the spacing between the letters I'll press and hold the ALT key on my keyboard or the option key on a
Mac and I'll use the left Arrow key to move the letters closer together if I press the right arrow key I move them farther apart now this is called kerning where we adjust the space between letters I'll use the left Arrow key just to bring the letters closer together then I'll release the ALT key or option on a Mac and I'll press the right arrow key on my keyboard to move to the next
set of letters again I'll press and hold the ALT key or option on a Mac and I'll use the left Arrow key to bring those letters closer together I'll release alt or option and I'll press the right arrow key to move over to the next set of letters and then I'll do the same thing again with the two letters on the end and I think that looks good to accept the changes I'll again click the check
mark in the options bar now at this point I need to resize and reposition the text again so with my type layer still selected I'll go back up to the edit menu and I'll reselect free transform then I'll simply resize my text and move it back into position then to accept it I'll click on
the check mark to complete the effect I'll add a drop shadow to the letters to do that I'll click on the layer Styles icon the effects icon down here at the bottom of the layers panel and I'll choose drop shadow from the list this opens the layer style dialogue box set to the drop shadow options in the middle column the easiest way to adjust the drop shadow is to Simply
click and drag inside your image and Watch What Happens the shadow moves as I drag drag my mouse and we can see the angle and distance values changing as I drag I'll simply move the shadow into position where I think it looks good and then I'll darken up the Shadow by increasing the opacity to around 50% finally to soften the edges of the
Shadow I'll increase the size value then I'll click okay to close out of the layer style dialogue box to finish things up I'm going to crop away the blank space above and below the text so to do that I'll select the crop tool from the toolbar then I'll simply drag the top of the cropping box down and I'll drag the bottom of the Box up and all of the area
outside of the cropping border is going to be cropped away to crop the image I'll press enter on my keyboard or return on a Mac and Photoshop crops the image so at this point the effect is pretty much complete we've added the image inside the text we've added a drop shadow to the text and we've cropped away The Unwanted areas around the text one last thing we'll look at is that right now my background color is set to
White if I wanted to change it to something else all I need to do is doubleclick on the color swatch for the solid color fill layer this reopens the Color Picker where we can choose a different color we can choose a color color directly from within the Color Picker itself or we can move our mouse cursor into the image inside the text and then click to sample a
color I think in this case I'll click on one of the Dark Shadow areas inside the trees and that matches the color of the background to the color of the Shadows now of course I've pretty much lost my drop shadow here because the background is now very dark but that's okay I think that looks pretty good I'll click okay to close out of the Color Picker and with that we're done that's how to place
an image inside text using clipping masks in Photoshop as always I hope you enjoyed this video and hopefully you learn something along the way and I hope to see you next time I'm Steve Patterson from Photoshop essentials.com