PSD Tutorial: Adding a transparent text area to an image

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Adding transparent text areas to images is very popular in design and useful in many situations, such as, when an image is very ‘full’ and you need to add text.

In this tutorial we will be adding text, that is fully transparent, which means you will be able to see the image below, and around the text there will be a white semi-transparent object. We will show you how easily this can be achieved. 

STEP 1: OPENING THE DOCUMENT

Open Photoshop and load you photo and if you look at Layers panel, you will see your image on the Background layer. We used a blurred photo of Northern lights.

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STEP 2: CREATING AN OBJECT WITH WHITE FILL COLOR

Now we have to decide, where we want for our text to be and how big it is going to be. Click on the Rectangle Tool and create a rectangle.

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We created a rectangle with white fill and no stroke from one side of the picture to the other.

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STEP 3: LOWER THE OPACITY OF THE RECTANGLE

You will find the Opacity option in the top corner of the Layers panel. By default the opacity is 100%, we will change it to 70%.

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Here is what we get:

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STEP 4:  ADDING TEXT

Select the Type tool from the right panel:

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With Type Tool selected, choose your font size and typography in the Options Bar. We chose Caviar Dreams, 140 pt and black color.

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With all of our font options set, click inside the document window with the Type Tool and add your text. We’ll type the words “BEAUTIFUL NORTHERN LIGHTS”.

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If we take a look at the Layer panel, we have a new layer:

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STEP 5: MAKING A NEW GROUP

Now we need to put the Type Layer and Rectangle Layer into a new Layer Group. First we select both layers by clicking on the first one and shift-clicking on the second one, so both of them are blue:

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Then go to Layer -> Group Layers

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This will place both layers into a new layer group which Photoshop names Group 1.

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STEP 6: SELECTING THE TYPE LAYER

Click on the Type layer to select it:

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STEP 7: CHANGING BLENDING OPTIONS

With the Type layer selected, click on the small menu icon in the top right corner of the Layers panel:

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This will open a menu and you will choose Blending Options: 

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This opens the large Layer Style dialog box set to the main Blending Options. Look for the Knockout option in the Advanced Blending section and change it from None to Shallow:

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Then drag the Fill Opacity slider above it all the way to the left to set its value to 0%:

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Click OK and Voila, this is how we add a transparent text area to an image.

northernlights

You can choose different color for the semi-transparent object, different objects, typography and more.

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