Two Mini Tutorials: Text Over Patterns

I am still plugging away at my faithbook and my memory verse cards! Here’s the most recent faithbook page inspired by the Beth Moore Stepping Up Bible study. I have now made pages for 5 of the Psalms of Ascent, so I’m 1/3 of the way finished .

Credits: Happy Trails, by Shabby Princess

And here are three more memory verse cards, using the brag book and collab kit by Shabby Miss Jenn and Dani Mogstad. I love using quick pages along with the matching kit, because most of the work is done for me, but I can still add my personal touches.

Photoshop Mini Tutorials: Text Over Patterns

Sometimes I like to place text on top of patterned paper or images, but that can make the text difficult to read. Here are a couple of ways I have found to make it work. Hope you find them helpful .

First Method:

For the second of the three cards above, I wanted to place my text over a post card image from the Vintage Garden Fairies kit, by SMJ and Dani.  The problem was that the flowers on the postcard were too bold, they competed with the text and made it unreadable, so here’s what I did:

1. I used the polygonal lasso tool to trace around the image on the postcard (excluding the outer edges and shadowing). I cut the selection to a new layer (right click> layer via cut).
2. On a new layer (between the two postcard layers), using the same selection, I filled the selection with a light, neutral color I picked up (using the eyedropper tool) from the outer edge of the postcard.
3. There were now three layers in addition to the background; the outer edge/shadow of the postcard, a layer of neutral color, and the image portion of the postcard. In the layers palette, I lowered the opacity of the image (the example below shows the opacity at 66%, but in the end, I set mine at about 44%).
4. Lastly, I added the text using the type tool, then changed the blend mode to “Linear Light”, which made it stand out a bit more. Tip: Try out several blend modes on your text layer – different ones will work best depending on the text color, paper color and texture, etc. 

Second Method:

Here’s the method I used to place patterned paper behind the text on the last card above.

1. I created a new layer behind the quick page, and filled it with a light color I picked up from the flowers on the page.
2. I placed a piece of floral patterned paper behind the quickpage, above the color layer, and in the layers palette, I changed the blend mode of the paper to “Soft Light” and lowered the opacity of the layer to about 77%.
3. I added my text using the type tool. 
4. I added even more pattern behind the text on the right by duplicating the text layer, increasing the text size dramatically and lowering the opacity of the layer to 29%. Tip: I also “rasterized” the layer so that I could delete the portion overlapping the text on the right side of the card. This step might be called by a different name in other versions of Photoshop, but that’s what it is called in Photoshop CS3. Just know that once you rasterize the layer, you can no longer edit the text with the type tool.

That’s it for today, have a wonderful weekend!!!

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