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See-Through Text

This tutorial has been re-written for PSP 8. It will show you how to put "see though" text on an image so that the text seems to see through/take on the colors of the image below. You will use layers, the text tool, and the drop shadow effect.

1. Open the image that you want to put the see through text on.
   
   
2. On the Materials Palette, set the Foreground Material box to transparent and set your Background Material box to white.
   
3. Activate the Text Tool.
   • Create as: Floating
   • Choose a font - a nice fat one works best
   • Choose a size to suit your image
   • Antialias - Checked
   • The others don't matter.

4. Click on your image. Type your text and click the Apply button.
   
   
5. With the text tool still active, move the text to where you'll want it to appear in the finished version.
   
   
6. Promote the floating selection to a layer by right clicking on "Floating Selection" in the Layer Palette and choosing "Promote Selection to Layer" or by going Selections > Promote Selection to Layer.
   
   
   
7. Create a new layer by clicking on the New Layer button on the Layers Palette (circled in the screen capture below) or by going Layers > New Rastor Layer
   
   
   
8. The outline of your text should still be selected at this point. We'll apply a drop shadow using this selection on the new layer.
   
   
9. Go Effects > 3D Effects > Drop Shadow and use settings that suit your image and font. I used the following settings but you may want to adjust them if these don't suit you...
   Offsets - Vertical and Horizontal - 0
   Opacity - 100%
   Blur - 6
   Color - Black
   Shadow on new layer - UNchecked. It should be greyed out. If not, make sure that you did create the new layer and that new layer is the active one.
   
   NOTE: you can change the drop shadow color to a light color if you're working on an image that has a very dark color for the background since black may not show up.
   
   
10. Deselect your text by holding down the Ctrl key while pressing the D key or by going Selections > Select None
    
    
11. On the Layer Palette, move the opacity slider on the "Promoted Selection" layer down to about 20% or whatever looks good to you...
    
    
    At this point you may want to duplicate the shadow layer to give your drop shadow more punch. Right click on the Raster 1 layer in the Layer palette and choose Duplicate from the drop down menu.
    Go ahead and try it. If you don't like it you can undo. :)
    
    
12. Repeat steps 2 though 11 for each line of text you wish to add to your image.
    
    NOTE: If you decide that you want to move text after you've finished, hide all the layers that do not pertain to that particular text and drop shadow, then go layers/merge/visible. Then you can activate the mover tool and move the text to where you want it to be.
    
    
13. When you're finished save your image as a PSP file if you think you'll ever want to make any changes in the future. Frame your image and save as a .jpg for use on your web page.