Masking, Shaping, and Warping Type in Photoshop

You can do a lot more with type than create labels, captions, or paragraphs of text. Type can become an integral part of the decorative design, especially when you stylize, warp, or otherwise transform it in interesting ways. Your Photoshop text can have character, too, communicating messages with more than just words. The text of a beach scene can appear to be wavy or watery and translucent. Halloween type can take on a ghostly or spooky appearance. Type can be romantic, otherworldly, cheerful, or comical. It all depends on how you create and apply it.

Playing with Type Layer Opacity
Layers are the stacks of overlays on which each of the elements of your image reside. You can change the transparency of a type layer the same as you can with any other layer in Photoshop, reducing the opacity (transparency) of the type so it allows the underlying layer to show through. Changing the opacity of a type layer can convey an idea of gradual visibility of words onto an image. When working with opacity in multiple layers of type, you can create a sort of nonanimated fade-in, each with a greater opacity.

One way to alter the transparency of type is to use a layer mask. Why would you want to use the layer mask instead of simply applying a gradient to the type itself? In practice, you can’t apply a gradient to a type layer until the type is rasterized (as described later in the chapter). By fading the type with a layer mask, you can customize your fading effect as much as you like and still edit the text to change the wording, font size, font, or anything else. The first Putting-It-Together project in this chapter shows you another way to use type opacity to create a ghostly effect.

Creating Fade Effects
To create a “fade out” image, just follow these steps:
1. Enter the words Fading out slowly (or other text of your choice) into a new type layer.
2. Choose Layer➪Add Layer Mask➪Reveal All.
This creates a mask that can show or hide some of the layer. With Reveal All selected, the layer defaults to showing everything on the layer without hiding any of it.
3. Press D to make sure that Photoshop’s colors are the default black and white.
4. Choose the Gradient tool from the Tools palette.
Or press Shift+G until it is active.
5. Select the Linear Gradient from the Options bar.
6. Click the layer mask’s icon in the Layers palette to make sure it is active.
7. Click the right side of the type layer and drag to the left side.
Photoshop creates a gradient in the layer mask that is black on the right and fades to white on the left. That means the mask is most transparent on the left side (where the mask is white) and least transparent on the right side (where the mask is black). It reveals more of the original type on the left and fades it out on the right to the left of the words.