Create Your Own Type Photo Mask

A type photo mask puts your photo inside your title, so the words and the image become one focal point. Creative Team Member Laura Tringali Holmes walks through it in Adobe Photoshop Elements — and it works exactly the same way in Photoshop.

Here is the thing about titles: most of us type the words, drop them in a corner, and call it done. However, your title can do considerably more work than that. Fill those letters with your photo and the words stop labelling the page — they become the page.

The technique rests on one function you may already know: the clipping mask. Any object on any layer can act as a mask, and type is simply another object. Once that clicks, a whole category of title design opens up.

Quick Jump — Table of Contents

• → What Is a Type Photo Mask?
• → What You Will Need
• → Create Your Type
• → Add and Position Your Photo
• → Clip the Photo to the Type
• → Link the Layers
• → Build the Layout Around It
• → Embellish the Focal Point
• → Take Your Type Photo Mask Further

What Is a Type Photo Mask?

A type photo mask is a title whose letters are filled with a photograph. You are not adding an effect to the text — instead, you are using the shape of the letters to decide which parts of the photo stay visible.

That is the clipping mask function doing its job. When you clip one layer to another, the upper layer shows only where the lower layer has pixels. Ordinarily we clip photos to FotoBlendz masks or paper shapes. Here, the type layer plays that role instead.

Because letters are relatively thin shapes, the font choice matters more than usual. Thin, delicate scripts leave slivers of photo that read as noise. Thick, heavy letterforms give the image somewhere to live.

What You Will Need

• → Adobe Photoshop or Photoshop Elements. Laura demonstrates in Elements, so every step here works in both.
• → One photo with plenty of visual interest — texture, colour, or contrast all read beautifully through letterforms.
• → A chunky font. Coda ExtraBold is free and does the job perfectly.
• → A drop shadow style. AnnaStyle Shadows No. 2 (1buttonblackDKBackground) is what Laura reaches for.
• → A few DigitalART supplies to build the layout around your title.

New to all of this? Start with what digital scrapbooking is and come back — this technique will still be here.

Step 01

Create Your Type

Your type layer is the mask, so this is where the whole design gets decided. Take a little longer here than feels necessary.

Play with the letterforms

Adjusting the spacing between characters stretches a word horizontally or vertically, which changes the whole feel of the title. Overlapping characters and words adds visual interest too. Nothing is locked in at this stage, so nudge the text around freely — you will reposition it again once the layout takes shape.

Step 02

Add and Position Your Photo

Each line of type needs its own copy of the photo directly above it. Fortunately, that is a duplicate away.

Step 03

Clip the Photo to the Type

This is the moment the whole technique pays off. With the photo layer selected, go to Layer> Create Clipping Mask. The image immediately conforms to the shape of the letters underneath.

Then repeat for every remaining photo-and-type pair. Of course, if you have three lines of text, you will clip three photo layers.

Adobe has a good technical reference on clipping and masking layers if you want the mechanics behind what is happening.

Step 04

Link the Layers

Right now each clipped photo moves on its own, which makes finding the sweet spot in your image slow going. Linking fixes that.

Select your photo layers, then click the chain icon in the Layers Panel. In Elements it sits to the left of the layer; in Photoshop you will find it along the bottom of the panel. Now all the image layers travel together, so you can slide the photograph around behind the letters until the composition sings.

You can also link the photos to the text itself. Do that once you are happy with the crop, and the entire set of clipping pairs moves as one unit around the page.

Step 05

Build the Layout Around The Type Photo Mask

Your title is doing a great deal of work already, therefore the rest of the page should support it rather than compete. Keep the embellishment restrained and let the type photo mask hold the focal point.

In this layout, Laura placed Solid Paper #2 from ArtPlay Palette Amidst above Artsy Paper #2, then applied Overlay blending mode and reduced the opacity for a softer foundation.

Underneath the title sits a layered Incandescence FotoBlendz No. 1 mask, acting as a matte. As a result, the letters gain texture and light behind them instead of floating on flat paper. Recolour the mask to match your palette, or duplicate the photo once more and clip it to the FotoBlendz for an echo of the same image.

Finally, stamp a few brushes around the title to frame it. Notice the three green leaves from PaintedLeaves No. 3 — placed in a visual triangle, they carry the eye around the page and back to the words.

Step 06

Embellish the Type Photo Mask Focal Point

A small cluster of elements beside your title gives the eye somewhere to land. Laura built hers from embellishments in ArtPlay Palette Amidst — nothing extra needed beyond what came in the palette.

Cluster building is a skill of its own, and it repays the practice. My Create Custom Element Clusters Part 2 replay walks through the principles of design in practice, with plenty of worked examples.

Reposition the type as often as you like while the layout comes together. Because everything is linked, the whole title moves in one piece.

Take Your Type Photo Mask Further

Here is the finished layout — an all-in-one photo title carrying the focal point of the page.

The whole thing in six lines

• → Choose a chunky font with thick strokes for your title foundation.
• → Place your photo so its edges extend well past the type.
• → Clip a duplicate of the same photo to each line of type.
• → Link the layers so the image and the letters move together.
• → Keep embellishment simple so it supports the focal point.
• → Frame the imagery with brushes arranged in a visual triangle.

Once you have the basic clipping in hand, the variations start suggesting themselves. Try a black-and-white photo behind a colourful page. Add a realistic drop shadow so the letters lift off the paper. Or clip a different photo to each word, and let the title tell three small stories at once.

Had a go? Post your artistry to the AnnaGallery — I would love to see what you make of it.