Transparent Text Areas on Images
Sometimes there’s a great image I’d like to put text on, but no matter what I try it’s always too hard to see, or too in my face. If there’s too much happening in the image, it will be harder to find a good fit for text. Here’s what I suggest.
Open your image. Find a place where you can ‘cover’ a little of the image without ruining it, and where text would look good. Click on the “Text” tool and make your text, as a floating layer, add all effects you want.
Click on the Selecitons menu and select “Promote Selection to layer;” your text has become a new layer. Now select the Preset Shape Tool and choose which type of shape you would like the transparent area to be. Make sure create as a vector is checked..I used a regular rectangle with a blue foreground and white background which creates a bordered rectangle. Draw your shape over the text, making sure to cover it completely.
Next, go to the layers Menu, making sure the shape is still a vector layer, and select Arrange > Move down. The box will go behind the text. You can use the Move Tool to move the box so everything looks centered. When the box is where you would like it, in the Layers palette, adjust the transparency of the vector layer to your liking.
You can now go to Layers and select “Promote to Raster Layer” if you’d like to do more effects to the box. If at some point you need to adjust the size you can use the object selection tool.
Your finished image will have your text in front of a slightly transparent shape in front of the image, like this.
