Ghosting Your Type in Photoshop

Need some ghostly, semitransparent type? You can twist, transmogrify, and transform your text by using Photoshop’s arsenal of features. You can create your type from scratch in an empty document or add the type to an existing picture or background. For the heck of it, these steps show you how to add ghostly writing to an existing image. Just follow these steps:
1. Open the background image you want to overlay with the ghost type.
The image I chose is already a little eerie because I reversed the colors of the original picture to make it look like a negative by pressing Ctrl+I (Ô+I on the Mac) and then colorized the negative to its original orange hue.
2. Choose the color you’d like to use for your text from the Swatches palette.
Black is a good Halloween complement to orange, but you can use any contrasting color.
3. Choose the Horizontal Type tool from the Tools palette and then click the area where you want to add the text.
The vertical cursor that appears is the same size that the text will be.
4. Choose a font size from the dropdown list in the Options bar.
5. Choose a font and style for the font.
Not every style (regular, italic, bold, or bold italic) is available for every font.
6. Use anti-aliasing to select how you want Photoshop to smooth the edges of your type.
Anti-aliasing softens a hard edge by adding partially transparent pixels. You can choose None (meaning you’ll have jagged edges, also known as jaggies), Sharp, Crisp, Strong, or Smooth.
7. Type your text.
The text appears on top of the background.
8. Click the Commit button (the check icon) on the Options bar to insert the text you’ve typed into a layer of its own.
9. Choose File-->Save to save your finished image.

You can make modifications to the type by using filters. You should save the project before moving forward. That way, if you don’t like what you get, you don’t have to keep it. To make additional changes to the text (such as to make it zig and zag, as I did in my example), use a filter. For example, if you want to make the text wavy, use the Wave filter in the Distort Type submenu.
1. Choose Filter➪Distort➪ZigZag.
The ZigZag dialog box opens. Or you can choose other filters from the array.
2. A warning dialog box pops up, informing you that the type layer must be rasterized (converted from editable text to pixels) before you can use the filter. Click OK.
3. If you’re using the ZigZag filter, choose an option from the Style drop-down list in the dialog box. Move the Amount slider to add as much distortion as you like.
4. Click OK to apply the distortion.
5. To change the opacity of the type (such as to make it semitransparent), adjust the Opacity setting in the Layers palette.
6. When you’re satisfied with the look, save your image for additional editing later, or choose Layer➪Flatten Image to combine the text and background.