Photoshop Elements 8 for Windows: The Missing Manual

Type Masks: Setting an Image in Text

So far in this chapter, you've read about how to create regular text and how to glam it up by applying Layer styles and effects. But in Elements, you can also create text by filling letters with the contents of a photo, as shown in Figure 14-11. (You'll find sunset.jpg, the photo used as the basis for Figures Figure 14-11 and Figure 14-12, on the Missing CD page at www.missingmanuals.com.)

The Type Mask tools work by making a selection in the shape of your letters. Essentially, you're creating a kind of stencil that you'll place on top of your image.

Figure 14-11. Using the Type Mask tools, you can create text that's made from an image. You can also use these tools to emboss text into your photo (see Figure 14-12).

Once you've used the type mask to create text-shaped selections, you can perform all sorts of neat modifications to your text: emboss the text into your image (which makes it looks like it's been stamped there); apply a stroke to the outline of your text (useful if the font doesn't have a built-in outline option); or copy and move the text to another document entirely.

Using the Type Mask Tools

Here's how to create a type mask and lay it over an image so that the letters are filled with whatever's in your image:

1. Open the image that you want to use as your source for creating the text.

2. Activate one of the Type Mask tools.

   Click the Type tool ...