How to put text on a picture and then make it look like it’s behind a person.

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By John Sweeney - 30th of January 2007

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How to put text on a picture and then make it look like it's behind a person.

First, open a picture of a person
Next make a copy of the picture on your layers pallet by dragging it onto the create a new layer icon.
Then, on the background copy, which should be already highlighted, add a layer mask. To do so click on the add a layer mask icon on the bottom of the layers pallet.
Now you are ready to add your text. Select the text tool from the toolbar, ensure that the text size is large enough, if the 72 pt allowed in photoshop is not large enough you can go to the size box in the contextual bar above and add your own size, say for example 200 pt.

Type in the name of the person in large type, right across the face and head area so that the text appears to be covering the face, When you have put the text in place hit the enter key on your keyboard. If you want to make the text bigger or move it about hit Ctrl T on your keyboard and move the text as required. When finished Hit Enter on your keyboard.

The next thing to do is go to the layers pallet and drag the layer containing the text between the two copies of the picture, at this stage the text will 'disappear', that's OK, that's supposed to happen.

Now, click on the layer containing the layer mask and highlight it. Then make sure that the colours of black and white are selected on your toolbar, to setup the colours correctly click the little black/white icons below the colours on your toolbar. Now select a brush, click on the layer mask on the selected copy on the layers pallet and start painting with black in the area, on the picture where the previous typing should be, the text will re-appear, only paint those areas outside the head, if you make a mistake select the colour white on the toolbar and paint over the area of the face and head, this will make the text disappear in those area.

To enhance the text further double click on the text layer on your layers pallet to the right of the written text, i.e. in the blue area, a new box will appear, it will be headed Layer Style. Now, you need to select the bottom selection in the list, which is shown as stroke, click in the box to the right of the word stroke, select a fill colour opposite to the colour you used for typing the original name and stroke then structure and increase the size so that you have a nice coloured border round the text.

You can make many other selection by clicking to the right of the blending options words on the layer style pallet.

Have Fun