Photoshop Friday! 2007, Issue 1 :D

Happy New Year!

 I hope all of your festivities were awesome. We have had a great few weeks full of family and togetherness. And on Wednesday, one statement of Rowen’s had me running for my camera. I got a photo and made the layout that became today’s Photoshop Friday.

Today we’ll work on using our Horizontal Type Mask tool. This amazing little tool creates a selection from a font, rather than typing in solid letters. This enables you to create outline fonts from any font (by stroking the selection), or fill a font with any pattern under the sun. 

Here’s the layout for today:

Click for larger.

Supplies: Fancy Free and Being paper packs by Jen Wilson; Fresh Foliage brush set by Jason Gaylor; Fonts: 2peas Stopsign, Impact 

In my example, I cut the letters for my title from a patterned paper by Jen Wilson. I recommend using a paper with a very small pattern, or scaling down a paper with a larger one. Textured and distressed solids also work great for this. So the first thing we’ll need is a patterned paper to cut our letters from.

1. Open a patterned paper to cut your letters from. I used a paper called FancyFree from the Fancy Free kit by Jen Wilson (whose site isn’t up just now).

2. Create a 12x12 blank photoshop document. (File > New Blank File, 12x12 inches, 300 dpi, RGB color, white background).

3. Drag your patterned paper onto your new document. (Remember never EVER to work in an original file. Bad things might happen. Dogs and cats living together. Mass hysteria. That sort of thing.)

4.  Select your Horizontal Type Mask tool. It lives under your Horizontal Type tool, and you can get it by clicking and holding on your type tool until the little flyout menu appears. It looks like this:

 

5. In the  Options bar at the top of your screen, choose a big thick font and a large font size. I chose Impact, 72 pt.

6. Click anywhere on your document. Your screen will turn pink and you’ll have a cursor to type in. The pink indicates that you are actually working in a mask (yes, exactly like a layer mask) that will create a selection from whatever you type next.

 Here’s a screen shot of what it should look like while you type your title:

Click for larger 

When you are finished typing, choose your Rectangle Marquee tool. You’ll leave the Quick Mask mode (which is what the pink-screen thing is called) and return to your document, but you’ll have a selection of the words in your title. Awesome! If you’re this far, you’re almost done. :)

7. With the Rectangle Marquee tool selected, you can reposition your selection anywhere on your paper to cut out exactly what you want.

8. With your patterned paper layer targeted, go to Select > Inverse. This selects everything except your original selection. Hit Delete to erase the patterned paper around  your selection. 

9. If you would like to outline your letters, go to Select > Inverse again, then go to Edit > Stroke (Outline) selection. Choose 10 pixels and a dark color (or white, depending on what your letters will be sitting on). If you don’t want to outline your letters, simply hit Ctrl-d to deselect, and you’ve got a die-cut title to place anywhere on your layout.

Have a wonderful Photoshop Friday! Please link me up when you get a layout done. I’d love to see! :D

-J 

Comments

[Debi B.]

Happy New Year! Thanks for the lesson... I can't wait to get home and try it! (I'm at work right now... yeah, I know... doing personal stuff... yadda yadda yadda... heehee!) BTW... LOVE your comment about "original docs" and "cats and dogs"... had me laughing and I almost blew my cover at the office! LOL Happy Weekend!

[Kim fuller]

Hi Jessica!

thanks so much for the lesson...tried it out and it was so easy! I'm a pretty basic digi scrapper, and I really learn a lot from your tutorials..they give me tons of new things to try and help me step out of my box--so thank you!!

Kim

[wendy]

well i was following along just fine until you quoted ghostbusters...LOL

totally ruined my train of thought! :P

[Vicki]

Well I gave it my best shot. It was fun!! Thanks so much for all the lessons, I love your work.
www.thepickyprincess.blogspot.com
(And yes I did scraplift you too...more than once!)
Vicki

[Carol]

Another awesome lesson. Thank you!!!

[Janie]

Jessica -- so glad you were able to enjoy your holiday with family but selfishly am glad you are back with Photoshop Friday (LOL!) I learn so much from your tutorials. Thanks for making them so user-friendly with the print option, etc. Best wishes for a happy new year, and thank you again.

[Suzanne]

Hi Jessica,

I just recently came across your blog and have enjoyed reading your tips. I am very very new at photoshop and currently working with PSCS2.

I don't know much about maskes and loved this lesson. But now I am confussed. Because of my lack of knowledge on masks, I have been doing my fonts on my LO by typing my title, let's say, then doing the place feature to bring my paper in. Then select "Layer" "create cliping mask". Then I group the two layers together.

What are the advantage and disadvantage of one vs. the other.

[Mar]

What a lovely picture. The tutorial is great, thank you!

[Barbara]

Jessica,
You brought a big 'ol smile to my face; thanks for all that you do!

[Michelle T.]

I did it! Thanks - you give awesome directions!

[Cathy Pascual]

Thanks for another great tutorial!

Here's a link to my blog where I posted it:
http://paper-cat.blogspot.com/

[kelly]

oooh so cool.
must try that soon :)

i love how you say "it lives..."
it reminds me of bob ross and that makes me happy.

[Sara]

THANK YOU so much for the great tutorials and the great opportunities to try your kits! I've learned a TON from you!

Here is my first digi layout ever!
http://twopeasinabucket.kaboose.com/pg.asp?gallery=1&cmd=display&layout_id=1062054

Sara

[Tara Leake]

Hi Jessica,

I just love your layouts and you have such great tips and techniques. Here is my scraplift from your layout. I really enjoy the Friday Photoshop class at Designer Digital. The video was quite helpful.

http://www.designerdigitals.com/ddgallery/showphoto.php?photo=19342&limit=recent

Thanks
Tara

[VickiV]

Hi Jessica! God Bless - I've been trying to figure out this masking text thing for a week - I keep reading and re-reading the Adobe Photoshop "Help" to no avail - you should write the tutorial instead! Your instructions were clear, easy and complete (down to the screen turning pink)!
Thank you infinitely!
Vicki

[Catherine]

Thanks Jessica - great tutorial

[Karen]

Jessica, you are my new best friend!!! I have been trolling the Internet for what seems like ages now in an effort to learn how to do certain things, and today I finally found YOU...hooray! Yours is the first tutorial that plainly and simply explained a technique that *worked* for me, and my excitement and relief at discovering your site is impossible to describe! And a Ghostbusters reference on top of it all...YOU ROCK! Thank you thank you thank you for taking the time to make this available! *HUG* :)