Hey, this is Marty from Blue Lightning TV!
I'm going to show you how to create powerful, customizable text portrait posters from photos.
Open a high-resolution photo you'd like to use for this project.
I downloaded this one from Shutterstock.
The results look best when our subject is cropped tightly around the head.
To do this, open your Crop Tool and at the top, open the crop preset list. Click "Width, Height, & Resolution".
Click the "Clear" button which clears out the amounts.
For this example, let's type in 1200 pixels for its width, 1200 pixels for its height,
and 150 pixels per inch for its resolution.
Go to a corner and drag it in.
To reposition it, just drag your photo.
Continue to finesse it until you're happy with its position and size
and then, press Enter or Return.
To zoom it out or in, press Ctrl or Cmd and the plus or minus key a few times on your
keyboard or press Ctrl or Cmd + 0 to fit it onto your canvas.
Next, we'll separate our subject from its background.
There are many ways to do this depending on which Photoshop version you're using.
If your version is CC 2020 or later, unlock the background and open the Properties panel.
If you don't see it, go to Windows and Properties.
Click "Remove Background".
Photoshop automatically masked out the background by creating a layer mask of our subject.
We'll make a new layer below it by Ctrl or Cmd-clicking the New Layer icon.
We'll fill it with black, but before we do, let's check our foreground and background colors.
If they're not black and white respectively, press "D" on your keyboard.
If they're inverted, press "x".
To fill the empty layer with the foreground color, press Alt or Option + Delete.
Make the top layer active and click the Adjustment Layer icon.
Click "Black & White".
Open the Black and White presets and click, "High Contrast Blue Filter".
This gives our subject a dramatic, high contrast effect.
If you want to brighten some areas of the face, make your subject active and make a
copy of it by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + J. Open your Dodge Tool and Brush Picker.
Pick a soft, round brush.
We'll adjust its size in a moment.
Its Hardness is 0%.
The Range is "Midtones" and the Exposure is 100%.
To make your brush bigger or smaller, make sure your CapsLock key is off and press the
right or left bracket key on your keyboard.
Click once or twice to brighten the midtones of your subject.
Next, we'll restore back the color of the eyes and if you want to change their color,
I'll show you how to do that, as well.
Click the layer mask of the black and white adjustment layer to make it active
and open your Pencil Tool and Pencil Picker.
Pick a soft or Hard Round point.
Make its Hardness and Opacity both 100%.
Adjust the pencil point's size and draw over the irises to reveal their original color through the layer mask.
To change their color, click the Adjustment Layer icon and click "Solid Color".
Pick a color you'd like for the irises.
I already know the color I want, so I'll type it into the hexadecimal field: 00FFFC.
Go to the layer mask of the black and white adjustment layer and press Alt or Option
as you drag a copy of it over the layer mask above it.
If you see this message, click "Yes" to replace the layer mask.
Invert th e layer mask by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + I.
Make the layer active and change its Blend Mode to "Hue".
Hide the bottom subject and make it active.
We'll create a new layer above it by clicking the New Layer icon.
In this layer, we'll add our text.
Alt or Option-click the eyeball icon next to the empty layer to hide all the other layers.
This will make it easier to see out text.
Open your Horizontal Type Tool and make sure your foreground color is black.
Open your Type Picker and pick a font you like for your text.
I'm picking Bebas Neue Regular.
If you'd like to use it, I provided its link in my video's description or project files.
For now, I'll make its size approximately 20 points, but we'll adjust it after we type out our text.
Make the aliasing: Smooth, and center alignment.
Place your cursor a bit outside a corner of your document and drag it to a bit the opposite corner.
Photoshop automatically creates text known as "lorem ipsum", which acts as a placeholder.
If you want to replace it with your own text, press the delete key to delete the lorem ipsum text.
Either type in your own text or you can copy existing text by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + A
to select it and pressing Ctrl or Cmd + C to copy it.
To paste it in, press Ctrl or Cmd + v multiple times until you fill your entire document
For this example, I'll just use lorem ipsum.
I'll press Ctrl or Cmd + C to copy it and click to the right of the bottom, right character.
I'll press Ctrl or Cmd + v multiple times until I fill your entire document with text.
Then, click the checkmark at the top.
Click the Character panel icon or go to Window and Character.
Open the Navigator panel.
If you don't see it, go to Window and Navigator.
Alt or Option-click the eyeball icon next to the text layer to make all the layers visible again.
To see our subject through the text, we'll clip the subject to the text.
To do this, hover your cursor between the subject layer and text layer and press and hold Alt or Option.
When your cursor changes into a clipping mask icon, click it.
Another way is to go to Layer and "Create Clipping Mask".
To adjust the text's size, position and "leading" which is the amount of space between the lines,
double-click the large "T" of the text layer to highlight the text.
Hover your cursor over the Size icon and drag the scrubby slider.
Continue to play with your text's size and leading until you're happy with the look of your portrait poster.
Then, click the checkmark at the top.
If you want to clean up the area surrounding your subject, make the layer mask of the clipped
subject active and open your Brush Tool.
Now, just brush over areas to mask them out.
This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV. Thanks for watching!