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The look we're shooting for is elegant, refined,
and a snap to put together. We'll cut out some text and a frame
for a picture, add a little drop shadow, and we're on our way.
With a bit of a gallery feel to it, this
technique is excellent for a variety of purposes.
We'll start by opening a new document the size
that we want for the final project. Fill the new document's
background layer with the color that you want to use as a
background for the final project. (We'll rename this layer
Underlay, but that's not necessary.) In this example, you'll see
white surrounding the photo and behind the cutout letters.
Next, bring in the photo or other image to use
as the centerpiece. Open the image, flatten if necessary, and
drag from the layers palette to the window of our new image.
Holding down the Shift key centers the new layer in the image.
Once copied, you can close the photo (and don't save if you
flattened).
With the new layer, let's call it Image, active
in the layers palette, choose Edit> Transform> Scale. You can
now drag the corners of the bounding box to re-size the photo.
When the cursor is positioned over an anchor point for the
bounding box, it changes to a two-headed arrow, indicating which
directions you can drag. Hold down Shift to avoid distorting
while dragging. (This is called constraining the proportions of
the image.) Hold down Shift-Option (Shift-Alt) to both constrain
proportions and scale all side equally (also know as
transforming from the center).
Scale and Position the object to suit (it need
not be centered.) Add a new layer to the image, we'll call it
Overlay. Fill it with the color you want to use for the top of
the finished project. We used white for the elegant look. (We
can add color in a later step, if we so desire.) You can fill
with the foreground color by holding down the Option key (Alt
for Windows) and pressing Delete (or Backspace on Windows).
(Pressing D and then X on the keyboard first sets the foreground
and background colors to black and white, and then swaps them,
making white the foreground color.)
Reduce the opacity of the Overlay layer (use the
Opacity slider at the top of the Layers palette), and use the
Rectangular Marquee tool to drag a selection in the center of
the layer. This is the "hole" through which we'll view the image
below. I made the selection a little larger than the image so
that the shadow won't fall on the picture itself.
Delete this selection. Now grab the Type tool
and add the text. The new type layer will be, by default, added
above the current layer. That's fine Ð we won't be using it for
long.
Once you've got the type set and positioned,
Command-click (Control-click) on the type layer in the Layers
palette to make a selection in the shape of the letters. Once
you have the selection, drag the type layer to the Trash icon at
the bottom of the Layers palette; it's no longer necessary.
With the type layer gone, the Overlay layer
should be active. (If it's not, click on it once in the Layers
palette.) Hit Delete/Backspace to delete the selection. Restore
the Overlay layer to 100% opacity in the Layers palette.
Double-click on the Overlay layer to open the
Layer Style dialog box and add a drop shadow. Keep the settings
rather conservative. (For this example, I use settings of
Distance: 5, Size: 5. The result should look like this:
There are several things we can do to modify
this look. One of the easiest is to use the filter Texture>
Texturizer on the Overlay layer. Adding a Sandstone finish gives
the top layer some depth.
Or we can add a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer
to give the top layer some color. Click on the New Adjustment
Layer button at the bottom of the Layers palette and drag the
cursor to Hue/Saturation.
When the Hue/Saturation dialog box opens, click
OK to accept the defaults. Now in the Layers palette, make sure
that the adjustment layer is above Overlay, then position the
cursor on the line between the layers and hold down the
Option/Alt key. The cursor will change to the "wedding bands"
look.
Clicking on the line between the layers
"marries" the adjustment layer to the Overlay layer, restricting
its effects to that one layer. (Otherwise, any hue/saturation
adjustment would be applied to the entire image.) Double-click
on the left thumbnail in the adjustment layer to re-open the
Hue/Saturation dialog box.
(The thumbnail on the right is a layer mask.
Editing the mask restricts the effects of the adjustment layer.)
In the Hue/Saturation dialog box, click the
Colorize button, drag the Lightness slider a little to the left,
and then change the three sliders to suit your needs.
By using an adjustment layer, you can go back
and change the color of Overlay by simply re-opening the
Hue/Saturation dialog box.
In this case, after applying the color, I'll
re-open the Layer Style for Overlay and reduce the drop shadow
settings to Distance: 3, Size 3. This "cleans up" the edges of
the text cutout.
(Thanks to George Leononen for the
question that suggested this column.) |