Hi. This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV.
I'm going to show you how to create a simple, but powerful poster of text made with your favorite photos.
This tutorial is for Photoshop versions CS6 and later.
We'll revisit a feature called "Contact Sheet II", which I showed in tutorials for creating
powerful walls of photos reflected onto a black, shiny floor and a stunning portrait mosaic of photos.
If you like to watch these tutorials, I provided their links in my video's description below or project files.
Create a new document by either pressing Ctrl or Cmd + N or by going to File and New.
Make the measurement: "Inches".
Make the Width: 8, the Height: 10 and the Resolution: 150 pixels per inch.
The Color Mode is RGB and 8 bits per channel.
If the Background isn't white, either open the list of Background Contents and pick white
or click the box and pick white.
Then, click "Create" or "Open".
First, let's create guidelines for our text.
Go to View and click "New Guide Layout".
Make sure Columns and Rows are unchecked and Margin is checked.
For the Top, Left, Bottom and Right, type in point 5 inches in each.
This creates guidelines a half inch all around.
Open your Horizontal Type Tool and make sure your foreground and background colors are
black and white respectively.
If they're not, press "D" on your keyboard.
Open your list of fonts and pick a heavy, san-serif font.
I'm using "Tondu".
If you want to use it,as well, I provided its link in my video's description below the
video or in my project files.
I'll temporarily use a point size of 75, Sharp and center alignment.
Click on your document and type out your first line of text.
To adjust the space between all of characters, highlight the entire line and press Alt or
Option as you press the right or left arrow key on your keyboard.
This is called "Tracking".
To adjust the space between two characters, called kerning, place your cursor between
those characters and press the same keystrokes.
Next, we'll size our line of text to the guidelines.
Click your Move Tool and press Ctrl or Cmd T to open your Transform Tool.
Drag your text near the top, left corner of the guidelines and go to the lower, right
corner of the Transform's bounding box.
When you see a diagonal, double-arrow, press and hold Shift as you drag it in or out until
your text is close to the to the right guideline.
Then, press Enter or Return.
It's okay if your characters overhang a little past the guideline if it looks good optically.
We can always adjust it later if we want.
Press "T" to open your Type Tool, click on your document and type out your second line of text.
Adjust the kerning and click your Move Tool.
Open your Transform Tool to size and position the second line of text.
We want it to be flush with the bottom of the first line.
To slide it up one pixel at a time, press the up or down arrow key on your keyboard.
Add the rest of your text using the same steps as you did for the first two.
We want our text to be flush with the bottom guide line.
If our block or text is too short or too, scroll to the bottom the Layers panel and
Shift-click the bottom text to make all the text layers active.
Then, press Ctrl or Cmd + G to place them into a folder.
Name the folder, "Text".
Open your Transform Tool and go to the bottom, middle of the bounding box.
When you see a vertical, double-arrow, drag it down or up until your text is flush with
the bottom guideline.
Then, press Enter or Return.
We can hide the guide lines by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + H. Next, we'll create a photo mosaic.
The first step is to organize all of your photos that you'll want to use in your poster
and place them into a folder.
To determine how many photos you’ll use, first, decide how many rows and columns you'll want.
In this example, I'm using 8 rows and 5 columns.
So, I multiplied the number of rows with the number columns to get the number of photos
I placed into my folder: After you've placed your photos into a folder, go to File, Automate
and "Contact Sheet II".
The Contact Sheet window may look a different than mine if you're using an earlier version of Photoshop.
The Source Image is "Folder".
Click "Choose" and locate the folder that your photos are placed into.
It’s location is automatically placed here.
Choose "Inches" and make sure "Flatten All Layers" is unchecked.
You'll see why later.
I've found that using the same size and resolution as our document will result with our pattern
of photos becoming rather blurry.
However, if we double the Width and Height to 16 inches by 20 inches and double the resolution
to 300 pixels per inch, our photos will end up much sharper in our poster.
Just keep in mind that increasing the size and resolution of the Contact Sheet document
will make it extremely large The Mode is "RGB Color" and 8-bits per Channel.
I'll place the thumbnails "across first".
For this example, I'll use 8 rows and 5 columns.
By unchecking "Use Auto-Spacing" and keeping the Vertical and Horizontal both: 0, it'll
make all of our photos flush with each other.
Uncheck “Rotate for Best Fit", since we don't want any of our photos to be rotated.
Make sure "Use Filename as Caption" is unchecked, as well.
Then, click OK.
Photoshop is now automatically positioning each photo onto its own layer with its own layer mask.
The reason we didn't choose to flatten the layers is so we can adjust the size of each
photo within its respective layer mask.
First, we need to click off the chain-link icons on each layer, which unlinks the layers
with their respective layer masks.
Doing this, allows us to resize and reposition the photos, without moving their layer. masks
After you've unlinked all of them, make sure your Move Tool is active.
Then, check "Auto-Select".
Now, when you click a photo on the image, Auto-Select automatically selects that photo
in the Layers panel and makes it active.
Open your Transform Tool by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + T. Go to a corner and when you see
a diagonal, double-arrow, press and hold Alt or Option + Shift as you drag it in or out.
Then, press Enter or Return.
Notice, your photo is confined inside its layer mask.
Continue these steps for each photo until they're all sized and positioned to your liking.
Go to Edit and "Define Pattern".
I'll name it "16 by 20 by 300", which is the width, height and resolution of my contact sheet.
If you're contact sheet has a different size and resolution, just type them in.
Open back your poster.
Click the Adjustment Layer icon and click "Pattern".
I'll reduce the scale to 10%, but feel free to use any amount.
You can always change it later if you want.
To fill your text with your photos, we'll clip the pattern layer to the text layer below it.
To do this, press Ctrl + Alt + G on Windows or Cmd + Option + G on a Mac or you can go
to Layer and "Create Clipping Mask".
Click the Adjustment Layer icon and click "Black & White".
Clip the adjustment layer to the text by either pressing the shortcut keys or by clicking
the Clipping Mask icon.
To see our text better, we'll darken our photos.
To do this, click the Adjustment Layer icon again and this time, click "Levels".
Clip it to the text
and drag the Output highlight slider to the left.
Next, if you have a period or another punctuation mark at the end, I'll show you how to replace
the photos in it with a solid color.
Scroll to the bottom of the Layers panel and open the Text folder.
Ctrl-click or Cmd-click the large "T" next to your last word you typed.
This makes a selection of its shape.
Open your Lasso Tool
and click the "Intersect With" icon.
Draw around the punctuation mark to isolate its selection.
Scroll to the top and make a new layer above it.
Click the Layer mask icon to make a layer mask of the selection next to the new layer.
Make the layer active and fill it with black.
Double-click the black layer to open the Layer Style window.
Click "Color Overlay" and the color box.
Pick a color you like.
I prefer using this method of using Color Overlay because you can change the color of
the shape you're filling instantly.
Presently the shape is oblong and I'd like to make it into a circle.
I'll use my Transform Tool to do it.
In the center of the Transform's bounding box is a tiny symbol called the "reference point".
I'll drag it to the center of my shape, which will make this the fixed point for any transformations I do.
I'll go to the bottom, middle of the bounding box and press and hold Alt or Option + Shift
as I drag it up to squeeze the shape from its center.
To resize it, I'll go to a corner and press and hold the same keystrokes as I drag it
out from its center.
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This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV.
Thanks for watching!