Let me show you how to place text behind an object in Photoshop.
This is a document that we're going to work with.
I have two layers, a background layer and this regular text layer.
The first step is to select the object that will be in front of the text layer.
There's a lot, a lot of ways of making selections in Photoshop.
One of the easiest is by going into Select and choosing Subject.
This will use Artificial Intelligence,
known as Adobe Sensei to make a selection around the image.
The selection will not be perfect, but it's a great starting point.
To fine-tune the selection,
you can press the Q key on the keyboard to enter the Quick Mask Mode.
The red overlay indicates the areas that are not selected.
What we need to do now is just make sure
that we're selecting the car and you can do so by selecting the Brush Tool
and painting with white in areas that you want to select.
Remember, with a Layer Mask, white reveals and black conceals.
Here's the trick for you.
If you click once and hold Shift and click again,
Photoshop will draw a straight line in between those two points.
We'll use this technique to add the edges of the top of the car onto the selection.
The selection doesn't have to be perfect.
You can always come back and edit it.
Notice that there is this area that we need to deselect.
You can make black your foreground color
by tapping on the D key
and enabling the default foreground and background colors.
And then paint with black over that area to deselect.
You can now press the Q key to bring back the selection.
What we'll do now is select the text layer, enable it,
and then press Ctrl G on Windows, Command G on the Mac
to make a group with the text layer inside of it.
Then we can click on the Layer Mask icon to create a mask out of the selection.
The mask is applied to the group and you'll see why in a moment.
But first, notice that we have the text
showing in front of the car, but nothing behind it.
We want the opposite, so we need to invert the Layer Mask to do so.
You can press Ctrl I on Windows, Command I on the Mac to Invert,
or you can click on the Invert button here in the Properties panel.
Once you do that, you'll notice that the text is now behind the car.
If I select the text layer
and enable the Move Tool.
You can see that when I click-and-drag,
it will seem like the text is behind the car, which is exactly what we want.
To further add to the realism,
we need to make sure that the text layer is visible through the window.
Let me show you how to do that.
I'll Zoom in by tapping on the Z key.
Select the Brush Tool from the Options bar, click on the down-pointing arrow
and reduce the Hardness to soften the edges.
And click on the foreground color
and set the brightness to about 30% and I'll press OK.
Then with the brush tool I'll paint on the Layer Mask like so and you'll see
that the text will come through and because we're painting with 30% Gray
we only get 30% Opacity in the text layer making it look more realistic.
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If you want to see what you're doing you
can always hold Alt on Windows, Option on the Mac
and click on this Layer Mask.
And now I can see the Layer Mask and paint over the areas that I missed.
I'll hold Alt on Windows, Option on the Mac
again and click on the Layer Mask to bring back the regular view.
I'll double-click on the Hand Tool to fit the image to screen
and you can see the result.
When I select the Move Tool
and move the text layer you can now see the transparency in the car.
If you have any mistakes like I have here,
you can always come back and continue painting on the mask.
I'll select the mask,
enable the Brush through by pressing the B key
and I can continue painting away these imperfections.
The reason that we added the Layer Mask to the group and not the text layer is so
that we can control multiple layers with just one mask.
In this example, I have two text layers
in the group, we have this text layer that reads "Text"
and we have a second text layer that reads "Behind"
and we can control them independently from one another
with one Layer Mask.
Making it an efficient way to work.
I would also recommend using the selected mask workspace to fine-tune your mask
especially if you're working with subjects that have hair or other intricate detail.
If you don't know how to do that,
don't worry, you can check out my video on changing backgrounds.
I talk all about the Select and Mask Workspace and how it works.
You can check it out here.
Thank you so much for watching!