Clipping Masks And Type – Placing An Image In Text With Photoshop
In a previous tutorial, we learned the basics and essentials of using clipping masks in Photoshop to hide unwanted parts of a layer from view in our designs and documents. We learned that clipping masks use the content and transparent areas of the bottom layer to determine which parts of the layer above it remain visible, and as a real world example, we used a clipping mask to place one image into a photo frame that was inside a second image.
In that tutorial, we focused mainly on using clipping masks with pixel-based layers, but another common use for them is with type. Specifically, they can be used to easilyplace a photo inside of text! As we’ll see in this tutorial, Type layers in Photoshop are different from pixel-based layers in that there are no actual “transparent” areas on a Type layer. The type itself simply becomes the layer’s contents. When we use a clipping mask with a Type layer, any part of the image on the layer above that sits directly over top of the text remains visible in the document, while areas of the image that fall outside the text are hidden. This creates the illusion that the image is actually inside the text! Let’s see how it works.
As with the previous tutorial, I’ll be using Photoshop CS6 here but everything we’ll cover applies to any recent version of Photoshop.
Here’s a document I have open containing two images. The first photo on the bottom Background layer will be used as the main image for the project (friends enjoying snowfall photo from Shutterstock):
The main image that will be used as the background.
And if I turn on the top layer by clicking on its visibility icon in the Layers panel:
