Photoshop Tutorials: Add Transparent Type To

An Image
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Written By Steve Patterson

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In this Adobe Photoshop tutorial, we're going to learn how to add transparent type to an image.
There's lots of different ways to make Photoshop type transparent, and in this tutorial, we'll look at a
few ways to go about it.

We'll first look at the fastest and easiest way to make text transparent, and then we'll look at a few
more interesting ways to create transparent type using layer styles, plus we'll look at the important
difference between a layer's "Opacity" and "Fill" options.

This is sort of a combination of a photo effects tutorial and a text effects tutorial, and any recent
version of Photoshop will work.

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Photoshop effects tutorials and Photoshop Text Effects tutorials. More free Adobe Photoshop tutorials
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Here's the image I'll be using throughout this Photoshop tutorial:

Photoshop Tutorials: The original image.

And here, after we look at the fast and easy way to make text transparent in Photoshop, is the more
interesting result we'll be working towards:

Photoshop Tutorials: One of our final results.

Let's get started.

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Step 1: Add Your Text To The Image

Before we can worry about making our Photoshop text transparent, we first need to add it, so let's do
that. Select your Type Tool from the Tools palette:

Photoshop Tutorials: Select the Type Tool.

You can also quickly access Photoshop's Type Tool by pressing T on your keyboard. I want white as
my Foreground color, so I'll press D on my keyboard, which resets Photoshop's Foreground color to
black and its Background color to white, and then I'll press X to swap them, making white my
Foreground color.

With your Type Tool selected and white as your Foreground color, go up to the Options Bar at the top
of the screen and choose your font. Your choice of fonts will of course depend on which fonts you
currently have installed on your system. I'm going to choose Helvetica Black Condensed for my font.
You can also set your Font Size in the Options Bar if you wish, but it's often easier to adjust the size
after you've added the type using Photoshop's Free Transform command, as I'll be doing in a moment.
So for now, I'll go ahead and add my type. I'm going to type the words "SCUBA DIVING" (even
though technically, the people in the photo are snorkeling, but I'm sure they'll be going scuba diving
later):

Photoshop Tutorials: Add your type to the image.

Click the checkmark in the Options Bar to accept your type when you're done:

Photoshop Tutorials: Click the checkmark in the Options Bar to accept the type.

Step 2: Resize And Reposition The Type As Needed With Free Transform

Press Ctrl+T (Win) / Command+T (Mac) to bring up Photoshop's Free Transform box and handles
around your text. Move your text into position by clicking anywhere inside the Free Transform box
and dragging the text around on the screen (don't click on the little target icon in the center though or
you'll move the target, not the image). To resize the text, hold down Shift+Alt (Win) / Shift+Option
(Mac) and drag any of the corner handles. Holding "Shift" tells Photoshop to constrain the width and
height proportions of the text as you drag so you don't distort the look of it, and holding Alt/Option
tells Photoshop to resize the text from the center. I'm going to stretch my text vertically a little as well,
so once I've moved it into position and resized it with the corner handles, I'm going to hold down Alt
(Win) / Option (Mac) again and click on the top center handle and drag it upward to stretch the text.
Once again, holding down Alt/Option stretches the text from its center:

Photoshop Tutorials: Move and resize the text as needed with Photoshop's Free Transform command.

Press Enter (Win) / Return (Mac) when you're done to accept the transformation.

With our text added, we'll look at the absolute easiest way of making it transparent next.

Step 3: Lower The Opacity Of The Type Layer

The quickest and absolute easiest way to make your Photoshop type transparent in front of an image is
to simply lower the type layer's Opacity value. If we look in our Layers palette, we can see that we
currently have two layers, with our original image on the bottom "Background" layer and our text on
the layer above it:

Photoshop Tutorials: Photoshop's Layers palette showing our two layers.

To lower the opacity of the text and allow the image underneath it to partially show through, simply
go up to the Opacity option in the top right corner of the Layers palette and lower its value. The lower
you set the opacity value, the more transparent the text will become. I'm going to lower mine to about
50%:

Photoshop Tutorials: Lower the opacity of the Photoshop text layer to make the text more transparent.

And here's my image after lowering the transparency of my text:

Photoshop Tutorials: The text now appears semi-transparent after lowering its opacity value.

The text now appears semi-transparent, and if I was to lower its opacity value even further, it would
become even more transparent. Here's the image with the text's opacity lowered to 35%:

Photoshop Tutorials: The text now appears even more transparent after lowering its opacity down to
35%.

Of course, if I was to lower the opacity all the way down to 0%, the text would become completely
invisible, which isn't really what we want. Generally speaking, an opacity value of somewhere
between 30-50% works well with most images.
So that's the fastest and easiest way to make text transparent over an image, but it's certainly not what I
would call the most interesting way, so let's look at a different way to go about it. Before we do that
though, I'm going to set my opacity value back to 100%:

Photoshop Tutorials: Setting the opacity value of the text back to a full 100%.

Step 4: Lower The "Fill" Value All The Way Down To 0%

A minute ago, we saw how lowering the opacity value of the type layer can make it transparent. The
more we lowered the value, the more transparent the text became. If you look directly below the
Opacity value option in the top right corner of the Layers palette, you'll see the Fill option. The
difference between "Opacity" and "Fill" has to do with any layer styles that have been added to the
layer, and understanding this difference opens up an entire world of possibilities in Photoshop, so it
really is important that you know the difference. Currently, I don't have any layer styles applied to my
type layer, so if I was to lower the Fill value, the result would be exactly the same as if I lowered the
Opacity value. The lower I set the Fill value, the more transparent the type would become. In fact, let's
do that now. Lower the Fill value of your type layer all the way down to 0%:

Photoshop Tutorials: Lower the "Fill" value of your Photoshop type layer down to 0%.

Your text will completely disappear in your image, which is exactly what would have happened if we
lowered the Opacity value down to 0%:
Photoshop Tutorials: The text has disappeared inside the image.

Step 5: Add An "Outer Glow" Layer Style

The difference between "Opacity" and "Fill" is that if we had lowered the Opacity value down to 0%,
not only would the type itself be completely transparent and hidden from view but any layer styles we
tried to add to it would also be completely transparent as well, which means we wouldn't see anything
no matter what we did to the type, which means this whole thing would be kind of pointless, really.
But, by lowering the Fill value down to 0% instead, the type still becomes transparent but any layer
styles we add remain fully visible! Click on the Layer Styles icon (the icon that looks like an "f") at
the bottom of the Layers palette and choose the Outer Glow layer style from the list:

Photoshop Tutorials: Add an "Outer Glow" layer style to the Photoshop type layer.

This brings up the Layer Style dialog box set to the Outer Glow options in the middle column, and
already, if you look in your image, you'll see the glow around the outside of your type. Again, if we
had lowered the Opacity value to 0%, the layer style itself would also be hidden from view, but since
we lowered the Fill value, only the text becomes transparent while the layer style remains visible.

By default, the Outer Glow color is yellow, so let's change it to something that fits in better with our
image. In fact, let's sample a color directly from the image and use it as our Outer Glow color. To do
that, click on the color swatch directly below the word "Noise":

Photoshop Tutorials: Click on the color swatch to change the color of the Outer Glow.

This will bring up Photoshop's Color Picker but just ignore it or slide it out of the way if needed, since
we won't be using it. Instead, move your mouse over the image and as you do, you'll see your mouse
cursor change into the Eyedropper icon. Click anywhere inside the image to sample a color, which will
become the color of your Outer Glow. As soon as you click inside your image, you'll see the Outer
Glow around your text change to the color you just sampled, so feel free to click on different areas of
your image to preview what that color looks like. I'm going to sample a light blue from the top left
corner of my image and as soon as I do, my glow color around my text changes to the same light blue
color:

Photoshop Tutorials: Click inside the image to sample a color to use for your Outer Glow.

Once you've sampled a color to use for your Outer Glow, click OK in the top right of Photoshop's
Color Picker to close out of it and return to the Outer Glow options in the middle column of the Layer
Style dialog box. Increase the Opacity of your Outer Glow all the way to 100%, then increase the glow
Size to around 20 pixels:
Photoshop Tutorials: Increase the Opacity of the Outer Glow to 100% and increase the Size to around
20 pixels.

Click OK when you're done to exit out of the Layer Style dialog box. Here's my image so far:

Photoshop Tutorials: The Photoshop text after applying the Outer Glow layer style with the color
sampled from the image.

We could end here if we wanted, since we now have our transparent text effect and it does look more
interesting than if we had simply lowered the type layer's Opacity value as we did back near the
beginning of the tutorial, but let's take things further.

Step 6: Set The "Fill" Value Back To 100%

Go back up to the top right corner of the Layers palette and set the type layer's Fill value back to a full
100%:
Photoshop Tutorials: Set the Photoshop type layer's Fill value back to 100%.

This is going to temporarily fill your text with white again:

Photoshop Tutorials: The text is now filled with solid white once again.

Step 7: Change The Type Layer's Blend Mode To "Overlay"

Another way to make text transparent in an image is to change its blend mode. By default, a layer's
blend mode is set to "Normal", which basically means "nothing special". The type layer is just sitting
there and not really interacting with the image below it in any way, but we can change that. Go up to
the Blend Mode options in the top left corner of the Layers palette, directly across from the Opacity
option. Click on the down-pointing arrow to the right of the word "Normal" and choose Overlay from
the drop-down list that appears:
Photoshop Tutorials: Change the blend mode of the Photoshop type layer from "Normal" to "Overlay".

Now look at the image. The text has become transparent once again but it's also picking up the colors
from the image below it and making everything brighter, giving us a really nice effect:

Photoshop Tutorials: After changing the type layer's blend mode to "Overlay", the text becomes
transparent once again and the image underneath it becomes brighter and more colorful.

If you find that the Overlay blend mode is too intense with your image, try "Soft Light" instead, which
gives the same yet much more subtle effect.

Again, we could stop here, but let's finish things off by giving our transparent type just a bit more
definition.

Step 8: Add An "Inner Glow" Layer Style To The Type

Click back on the Layer Styles icon at the bottom of the Layers palette and this time, choose Inner
Glow from the list:
Photoshop Tutorials: Add an "Inner Glow" layer style to the Photoshop type layer.

Once again, Photoshop will bring up the Layer Style dialog box, this time set to the Inner Glow
options in the middle column. Just as we did with the Outer Glow, let's sample a color from the image
to use for our Inner Glow. Click on the color swatch directly below the word "Noise":

Photoshop Tutorials: Click on the color swatch for the Inner Glow to change its color.

Photoshop's Color Picker will appear and again we're going to ignore it, since we're going to sample a
color directly from the image. Move your mouse cursor over the image and you'll see it change into
the Eyedropper icon. Click on a dark color in the image to sample it. We want a dark color because
we're going to be changing our glow into a shadow, so make sure you sample a color that's nice and
dark. I'm going to sample a dark blue color from my image:
Photoshop Tutorials: Sample a dark color from the image which will become an inner "shadow".

Once you've sampled your color, click OK in the top right corner of the Color Picker to exit out of it
and return to the Inner Glow options in the Layer Style dialog box. To change our Inner Glow into an
Inner Shadow, all we need to do is change its Blend Mode at the top of the options from "Screen" to
Multiply by clicking on the down-pointing arrow to the right of the word "Screen" and choosing
"Multiply" from the list. As soon as you change the blend mode, you'll see the shadow appear just
inside the edges of your letters. Lower the Opacity value of the shadow down to about 40% so it's not
so intense, and finally, increase the Size of the shadow to around 18 pixels:

Photoshop Tutorials: Change the options for the Inner Glow (Shadow) as circled above.

Once you've changed the options, click OK to exit out of the Layer Style dialog box, and you're done!

Here, after adding a little more definition to my transparent type with an inner glow, is my final effect:
Photoshop Tutorials: The final result.

And there we have it! That's how easy it is to add transparent type to an image in Photoshop!

Photoshop Tutorials: Fill A Photo With Photos

Learn Adobe Photoshop with Photoshop Tutorials at Photoshop
Essentials.com
Written By Steve Patterson

In this Adobe Photoshop tutorial, we're going to create a bit of an optical illusion, filling one photo
with many smaller photos, or at least, many copies of a couple of smaller photos. The number of
smaller photos you use for this effect is completely up to you. If you view the photo from a distance,
you'll see the larger main photo, and if you view it up close, you'll see all the smaller photos inside of
it.

I originally saw this effect used in a job recruitment poster for a well-known restaurant chain, but it
also works great with family photos, wedding photos, or just as a fun thing to do with photos of all
your friends.

Let's say we have a photo of a mother:

Adobe Photoshop tutorial: A photo of a mother.

And mom has a couple of kids. Here's the photos of the kids:
Adobe Photoshop tutorial: The first child photo.

Adobe Photoshop tutorial: The second child photo.

We're going to create our effect by taking the photos of the two kids and using them to fill the photo of
their mom. Here's the effect we're going for:
Adobe Photoshop tutorial: The final result.

Let's get started.

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Step 1: Crop The Main Photo Into A Close-Up Of The Person's Face

I'm going to work on the main photo (the photo of mom) first, and what we need to do is crop it into a
close-up of her face. Cropping the main image into a square works best for this effect, so grab your
Rectangular Marquee Tool from the Tools palette, or press M to quickly access it with the keyboard
shortcut:

Adobe Photoshop tutorial: Select the Rectangular Marquee Tool from the Tools palette.

Then, with the Rectangular Marquee Tool selected, drag out a square selection around the person's
face. Hold down your Shift key as you drag to constrain the selection to a perfect square. If you need
to reposition your selection as you're dragging it, hold down your spacebar and as you move your
mouse, your selection will move along with it. Release the spacebar to continue dragging out the
selection:
Adobe Photoshop tutorial: Drag out a square selection around the person's face.

Now that we have our selection, we can use it to crop the image. Go up to the Image menu at the top
of the screen and choose Crop. Photoshop will go ahead and crop the image around the selection,
leaving you with just the square area you selected:
Adobe Photoshop tutorial: The main image is now cropped into a square around the woman's face.

That's all we need to do with the main photo for now. Let's work on the photos of the kids.

Step 2: Crop The Smaller Photos

We're going to crop the smaller photos next, and we'll be cropping them into a square, just like we did
with the main photo. Rather than using the Rectangular Marquee Tool though, let's use the Crop Tool,
since we're going to be cropping these photos down to a specific size. Now, the actual size that you
crop them to is going to depend on the size of your main photo and also on how many smaller photos
you want to use to fill your main photo with, so you may need to experiment a little with this.

Grab your Crop tool from the Tools palette, or press C on your keyboard to select it:

Photoshop Tutorials: Select the Crop Tool.

With the Crop Tool selected, go up to the Options Bar at the top of the screen and enter in a value of
50 px (pixels) for both the width and height:
Photoshop Tutorials: Enter "50 px" (pixels) for the width and height in the Options Bar.

Again, you may need to experiment a little with the sizes depending on the size of your main image.

Now that we have our width and height entered for the Crop Tool, I'm going to drag a selection around
the head of the child in the first photo. No need to hold down my Shift key this time to constrain my
selection to a perfect square since we've already specified a width and height in the Options Bar. If
you need to reposition your selection though as you're dragging it out, hold down the spacebar once
again to move the selection around on the screen, then release the spacebar to continue dragging the
selection:

Photoshop Tutorials: Drag a selection around the head of the person in the first photo with the Crop
Tool.

You can use the handles in any of the four corners to resize your selection after you release your
mouse button. You can also reposition the selection by clicking inside of it and dragging it around
with your mouse. When you're happy with your selection, press Enter (Win) / Return (Mac) to accept
it, and Photoshop will not only crop the image around your selection, it will also resize it to 50x50
pixels (or whatever size you entered for the width and height in the Options Bar):
Photoshop Tutorials: The first photo cropped to 50x50 pixels.

Do the same thing with the second photo, dragging a selection around the person's head with the Crop
Tool, resizing and repositioning it as needed, and then pressing Enter (Win) / Return (Mac) to accept
the selection and have Photoshop crop and resize it for you. Here's my selection around the young girl
in the second photo:

Photoshop Tutorials: Drag a selection around the head of the person in the second photo with the Crop
Tool.

And after pressing Enter/Return, here is my cropped, 50x50 pixel image:

Photoshop Tutorials: The second photo cropped to 50x50 pixels.

Step 3: Open A New 100 px x 100 px Document

Now that we have our cropped and resized images, we're going to create our pattern out of them. Go
up to the File menu at the top of the screen and select New..., or use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+N
(Win) / Command+N (Mac). Either way brings up Photoshop's New Document dialog box. We want
to create a new document that's twice as wide and twice as high as the two photos we just cropped, so
since mine were cropped to 50x50 pixels, I'm going to enter 100 pixels for my document's width and
100 pixels for my document's height:
Photoshop Tutorials: Enter a width and height for your new document that's twice as large as your two
smaller photos.

Also, make sure the Resolution for your new document is the same at it is for your photos. Select one
of your photos and go up to the Image menu at the top of the screen, then select Image Size, which
will bring up the Image Size dialog box. Check the value listed beside "Resolution". It will most likely
say either 72, 240 or 300. Make sure your new Photoshop document is set to that same resolution
value, which is located directly beneath the "Height" value.

Click OK in the top right corner of the New Document dialog box to exit out of it and have Photoshop
create your new document.

Step 4: Drag Your Two Small Images Into The New Document

Grab your Move Tool from the Tools palette or by pressing V on your keyboard:

Photoshop Tutorials: Select the Move Tool.

Then click inside the first photo with the Move Tool and drag it into the new document.
Photoshop Tutorials: Click inside the first image with the Move Tool and drag it into the new
document.

Click inside the new document and drag the image into the top left corner. It should snap into place:

Photoshop Tutorials: Click inside the new document and drag the image into the top left corner.

Click inside the new document once again, and this time hold down your Alt (Win) / Option (Mac)
key and drag the image into the bottom right corner. By holding down Alt/Option, rather than moving
the original image, you'll be creating a copy of it as you drag and you'll end up with two copies of the
image, one in the top left corner and one in the bottom right corner:

Photoshop Tutorials: Hold down "Alt" (Win) / "Option" (Mac) and drag the image into the bottom
right corner to create a copy of it.

Now let's do the same thing with the second image. First, click inside of it with the Move Tool and
drag it into the new document:
Photoshop Tutorials: Drag the second image into the new document with the Move Tool.

Then click inside the new document and drag the image into the top right corner:

Photoshop Tutorials: Drag the image into the top right corner.

Finally, hold down your Alt (Win) / Option (Mac) key once again and drag the image into the bottom
left corner, making a copy of it as you drag thanks to the Alt/Option key:

Photoshop Tutorials: Hold down "Alt" (Win) / "Option" (Mac) and drag the image into the bottom left
corner.

Step 5: Flatten The Image

If you look in the Layers palette of your new document, you should now have five layers:
Photoshop Tutorials: Photoshop's Layers palette showing five layers.

Let's flatten the image by going up to the Layer menu at the top of the screen and selecting Flatten
Image. Nothing will seem to have happened in your document, but if you look in the Layers palette,
you'll see that everything has now been flattened onto one layer:

Photoshop Tutorials: The Layers palette now showing only one layer after flattening the image.

Step 6: Desaturate The Image

Go up to the Image menu at the top of the screen, choose Adjustments, and then choose Desaturate,
or use the keyboard shortcut Shift+Ctrl+U (Win) / Shift+Command+U (Mac). This will remove the
colors from the image, leaving it in black and white:
Photoshop Tutorials: Press "Shift+Ctrl+U" (Win) / "Shift+Command+U" (Mac) to desaturate the
image.

Step 7: Define A Pattern With The Image

Now we're ready to create out pattern, or as Photoshop calls it, "define" our pattern. Go up to the Edit
menu at the top of the screen and choose Define Pattern. This brings up the Pattern Name dialog
box. I'm going to name my pattern "kids". You can name yours whatever you like of course. Then
click OK to exit out of the dialog box and your pattern is now defined:

Photoshop Tutorials: Type in a name for your pattern, then click OK.

You can close out of that document window at this point, since we don't need it anymore.

Step 8: Create A New Layer In The Main Photo

We're done with the smaller photos at this point, so switch back to your main photo and click on the
New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette to add a new blank layer to the document, which
we're going to use to fill the photo with the pattern we just created:

Photoshop Tutorials: Click the "New Layer" icon at the bottom of the Layers palette.

Photoshop will go ahead and add a new blank layer above the Background layer:
Photoshop Tutorials: The Layers palette showing the new blank layer above the Background layer.

Step 9: Fill The New Layer With The Pattern You Created

We're going to fill the layer with our pattern. To do that, go up to the Edit menu and choose Fill, or
use the keyboard shortcut Shift+F5. This brings up the Fill dialog box. Set the Use option to Pattern
by clicking the down-pointing arrow and selecting "Pattern" from the list. Then, to select your pattern,
click on either the small pattern preview thumbnail or the down-pointing arrow beside it and then click
on your pattern inside the selection box that appears. Your pattern will be the last one on the bottom
row.

Photoshop Tutorials: Select your pattern from the Fill dialog box.

For the options at the bottom of the Fill dialog box, make sure Blending Mode is set to Normal and
Opacity is set to 100%. Then click OK to exit out of the dialog box, and Photoshop will fill the layer,
and your image, with the pattern:
Photoshop Tutorials: The image is now completely filled with the pattern.

Step 10: Change The Blend Mode Of The Layer To "Overlay"

To blend our pattern in with the image behind it, go up to the blend mode options in the top left
corner of the Layers palette, click on the down-pointing arrow to the right of the word "Normal", and
change the blend mode to Overlay:

Photoshop Tutorials: Change the blend mode of the pattern-filled layer from "Normal" to "Overlay" to
blend the pattern with the image.

After changing the blend mode to Overlay, the pattern becomes blended in with the image below it,
creating our "optical illusion" effect:
Photoshop Tutorials: The final "optical illusion" effect.

If you find your pattern looks a little too intense, try changing the blend mode of the layer to Soft
Light rather than "Overlay" for a more subtle effect. You can also try lowering the Opacity of the
layer in the top right corner of the Layers palette.

And there we have it!