The artwork:

Things you will learn from here:

* Using Layer Mask – hiding part of the picture
* Copying pictures from one file to another.
* Ctrl+T to transform (Distort and Skew)
* Overlay blending mode

1. Open the two pictures. (You can freely use my files here for this purpose alone.)

Name the top picture as “lake” in its layer.

Name the next picture as “girl” in its layer.  You should have two files opened separately by now.

2. Insert the girl layer to the lake file.

There are lots of ways to do this. The easiest is through drag-and-drop.

Arrange these files cascade-ingly (Window > Arrange > Cascade) in your Photoshop window, and drag the “girl” layer on the “lake” file and drop it..using the Move tool. Notice that you’ll have two layers in “lake” file.

Since the girl’s picture is already in our lake file, you can now close the girl file so you’ll not be confused.

Alternatively, you can do this…
a. Right-click on the “girl” layer. Choose Duplicate.

b. Write ‘girl’ as the name of this new picture for the lake file (number 1 on the picture below).

c. Choose ‘lake’ on the Destination file (number 2 on the picture above). Hit OK. Now, go to your lake file and you’ll see that the girl picture is inserted, thus you have two layers now in the lake file.

3. Setting up Layer Mask. The next step is hiding part of the “girl” layer so that her face alone is retained.

Again there are different ways to accomplish this. But this time we will use the Layer Masking.

Select the girl layer and click the Add Vector Mask button. This will create a new white box in your girl layer; and that is the ‘mask’.

Think of that ‘mask’ as another layer placed on top of your girl layer (although it is placed on the side of your girl layer). This means that another layer (the mask) can cover your girl layer.

Notice that the ‘mask’ is all white. All white means the ‘mask’ is transparent, thus you can see what’s beneath it, i.e. your girl layer’s content. Shading it with dark color means hiding the layer’s content. Shading it with gray means semi-transparent.

4. Now we are ready to hide part of the “girl” layer. We will use the Brush tool to color the ‘mask’ with black so that the girl’s background will be hidden. Make it sure that you are working with the ‘mask’ and not on the girl’s picture; so click the ‘mask’. Select the Brush tool. I used these settings for the Brush tip.

5. Paint over the part of the girl layer that you want to hide. Don’t worry if you accidentally ‘removed’ part of the picture that is vital to your design. It’s still there. You’re not actually removing it, you’re just hiding it. Just paint it with white to show it again.

6. Lining up the girl’s face on the surface of the lake.

Ctrl+T to resize and align the girl layer with the surface of the lake. Right-click on the girl layer and select the type of Transform tool you need. Move the nodes to transform the picture. I used a couple of Distort and Skew so that the girl’s face is aligned to the lake’s surface.

7. Apply Overlay blending.

Done! You can also do these steps for images posted on clouds, mountains, rocks, etc.

Things you will learn from here:

• Cutting out the picture based on texts edges.
• Ctrl+Click on the layer’s thumbnail.

1. Open any picture file.

2. ‘Save As‘ the picture into Photoshop document with a different filename.

3. Double-click the ‘Background’ layer to unlock it. Name it as ‘pic’.

4. Write the text. Use a font with broad or bulky style like Bernard MT or Impact.

5. Make your text big, enough to fill the whole picture if possible. Ctrl+T to resize it. Press Enter key once you’re done with the transformation.

6. If you want to remove spaces between letters, show your Character Palette (Windows > Character) and select negative numbers in the Tracking or Metric combo box.

7. To see parts of the picture that are covered by the text, lessen the value in the Opacity of your text layer. Whatever is covered by the text right now will be the ‘fill’ of your text later on. You may want to adjust the text or the picture using the Move tool.

8. Press Ctrl key and click on the thumbnail of the Text layer. This will create a selection based on the edges of your text.

9. Now, you will apply the current selection to your ‘pic’ layer. To do this, click on the ‘pic’ layer.

10. Be sure that the Marquee or Lasso tool is selected. Then, right-click inside the selection. Click ‘Select Inverse’, then press the Delete button on your keyboard. Ctrl+D to remove the selection.

11. Remove the Text layer by selecting it and clicking the trash icon in the Layers Palette.

12. You’re done! You just ‘filled the text with picture’.

Now you can apply any ‘magic’ you know from Photoshop to this ‘picture-filled text’. See a sample file below.

In this file, I added the following:

• A gradient-filled rectangle that serves as the background.
• Used the Warp Transformation to curve the bottom of the picture.
• Bevel and Emboss
• Duplicate the ‘MenOfPraise’ picture, flip it vertically, and apply Gradient Overlay to make it like a reflection.

Things you will learn from here:

• Chisel hard bevel
• Ring Gloss Contour

1. Ctrl+N to open a new file. I used the following settings:
width: 450 pixels
height: 200 pixels
background color: black

2. Write the text you want. I used the font Copperplate Bold with a fontsize of 150pt, and colored it with ‘#faee2f’.

3. Make it gold. Click Layer > Layer Style > Bevel and Emboss. Apply the following settings:

Important settings are:

• Structure Technique: Chisel Hard
• Shading Gloss Contour: Ring
• Just check the Contour checkbox under Bevel and Emboss style.

If you want more shiny effect, set the Contour of your Bevel and Emboss (not the Gloss Contour) to Linear with a Range of 50%. These values are normally the default settings.

Apply white or gray Color Overlay to make it a metallic silver.

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Thanks for the comments and concerns!

Hi there!

Welcome to my blog. I decided to create Photoshop tutorials for those Beginners Who Are Moving To Advance Level.

Send me your comments.  Hope you’ll learn something from here!

Thanks!

Mr. Jess