Hi. This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV.
I'm going to show you how to create an awesome, camouflage text effect from a photo.
I provided a Photoshop file, so you can follow along.
It includes this photo, which you can replace with your own and an image of parchment paper.
Its link is in my video’s description below the video or in my project files.
The document is 1342 pixels by 1080 pixels with a resolution of 72 pixels per inch.
Before we begin, if you're not already a subscriber to Blue Lightning TV, click that small "Subscribe"
button at the lower, right to let you know as soon as I upload new Photoshop tutorials.
Hide the paper texture and make the photo active.
Make two copies it by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + J, twice.
Hide the copies and make the original active.
Click the New Layer icon to make a new layer.
We'll fill the empty layer with 50% gray.
To do this, press Shift + the F5 key at the top of your keyboard to open the Fill window.
You could also go to Edit and Fill.
Click "50% Gray".
Make the first copy visible and active.
The next step is to make a selection around the subject that you want to be camouflaged.
In this case, I'll choose to make a selection around the woman.
Open your Quick Selection Tool and drag it over the inside of the subject to select it.
To remove areas of the selection, press and hold Alt or Option as you drag over those areas.
To check your selection, press "Q" to see it as a quick mask.
Then, revert it back to a selection by pressing "Q" again.
Click the Layer mask icon to make a layer mask of the selection next to the active layer.
Next, we'll create a displacement map of the subject we're going to camouflage, which will
be used to wrap our text around it.
First, we'll make a composite snapshot of our visible image
by pressing Alt + Ctrl + Shift + E on Windows or Option + Cmd + Shift + E on a Mac.
We'll remove the color, which is also called "desaturating", by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + Shift + U.
Displacement maps looks best when their slightly blurred, so go to Filter, Blur and Gaussian Blur.
Blur it 2 pixels.
Click the icon at the upper, right corner of the Layers panel and click "Duplicate Layer".
Click "New" and type in "Displacement".
Notice, it created a brand new document.
Go to File and "Save As".
Save it to your Desktop for easy access as a Photoshop PSD document and click "Save".
If you see this message, just click OK.
Open back your document.
We can delete the black and white composite snapshot, since we already created a displacement map from it.
To delete it, either press the Delete key or drag it to the trash can.
We'll desaturate this layer and change its Blend Mode to Soft Light.
Drag the paper texture below the Background Copy 2 and make it visible.
Change its Blend Mode to "Overlay".
We'll make a new layer below the paper texture by Ctrl-clicking or Cmd-clicking the New Layer icon.
In this empty layer, we'll place our text.
Find a block of text that expresses the sentiments of your image and cut and paste it into any
word application such as Microsoft Word or WordPad.
Make sure there are no breaks in the lines of text.
Drag your cursor over it all to highlight it or you can press Ctrl or Cmd + A.
Press Ctrl or Cmd +C to copy it.
Minimize it and open your Horizontal Type Tool.
Open your Type Picker and pick a font.
I’m using “MT Matto Script”.
If you’d like to use it, I provided its link, as well.
I’ll make its size: 36 points, however, feel free to adjust this amount.
Its aliasing can be whatever you want, however, make it left alignment.
Place your cursor at the upper, left corner or near it and drag it across near or at the lower, right corner.
When you release, the default "Lorem Ipsum" text will appear.
Press Ctrl or Cmd + v to replace it with your text.
Press Ctrl or Cmd + v again until your text fills the text block.
To adjust the space between the lines, also known as “leading”,
double-click the large “T” of your text layer to highlight all of your text
and click the Character/Paragraph icon or go to Window and Character.
In the Character panel, go to the Leading’s scrubby slider and drag it to the left or right.
If you want to make your text look bolder or thicker, click the “Bold” icon.
Click the color box and in the hexadecimal field, type in: 160C04, which makes our text a very dark brown color.
Then, click OK or press Enter or Return.
We can close the Character/Paragraph panels now and click the check-mark at the top to accept the text.
Next, we’ll wrap our text around our subject, using the Displacement Map we saved earlier,
but before we do, we’ll convert our text into a Smart Object.
This allows us to modify it non-destructively.
Click the icon at the upper, right and click “Convert to Smart Object”.
Go to Filter, Distort and Displace.
The Horizontal and Vertical Scales are 15, "Stretch to Fit" and "Repeat Edge Pixels".
Find and click your "Displacement" PSD document that you saved earlier and click "Open".
Notice our text wrapped itself around the contours of our subject based on the tonal values of the subject.
Make the top photo visible and active.
Open your Quick Selection Tool and drag it over the other subject to select it.
We'll refine its edges by going to "Select".
If you're using a version earlier CC 2015.5, click "Refine Edge".
If you're using CC 2015.5 or later, click "Select and Mask".
If you prefer to use "Refine Edge", Shift-click "Select and Mask".
I did in-depth tutorials on both of these filters, so if you'd like to watch them,
I provided their links, as well.
Check "Smart Radius", which detects smooth and hard edges.
Drag the radius a bit to the right.
If you want to feather soft edges like hair, just drag your tool over those edges.
Check "Decontaminate Colors", which prevents color fringing along the edges of your subject.
I'll drag the amount to 100%.
Output it to a "New Layer with Layer Mask".
Lastly, we'll add a drop shadow.
Double-click the top layer to open its Layer Style window.
Click "Drop Shadow".
The Blend Mode is Multiply, the color is black and the opacity is 30%.
The Angle is 32 degrees, the Distance is 40 pixels, the Spread is 0% and the Size is 35 pixels.
The Contour is Linear.
This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV.
Thanks for watching!