Elegant Overlay

The look we're shooting for is elegant, refined, and a snap to put together. We'll cut out some text and a frame for a picture, add a little drop shadow, and we're on our way.

With a bit of a gallery feel to it, this technique is excellent for a variety of purposes.

We'll start by opening a new document the size that we want for the final project. Fill the new document's background layer with the color that you want to use as a background for the final project. (We'll rename this layer Underlay, but that's not necessary.) In this example, you'll see white surrounding the photo and behind the cutout letters.

Next, bring in the photo or other image to use as the centerpiece. Open the image, flatten if necessary, and drag from the layers palette to the window of our new image. Holding down the Shift key centers the new layer in the image. Once copied, you can close the photo (and don't save if you flattened).

With the new layer, let's call it Image, active in the layers palette, choose Edit> Transform> Scale. You can now drag the corners of the bounding box to re-size the photo. When the cursor is positioned over an anchor point for the bounding box, it changes to a two-headed arrow, indicating which directions you can drag. Hold down Shift to avoid distorting while dragging. (This is called constraining the proportions of the image.) Hold down Shift-Option (Shift-Alt) to both constrain proportions and scale all side equally (also know as transforming from the center).

Scale and Position the object to suit (it need not be centered.) Add a new layer to the image, we'll call it Overlay. Fill it with the color you want to use for the top of the finished project. We used white for the elegant look. (We can add color in a later step, if we so desire.) You can fill with the foreground color by holding down the Option key (Alt for Windows) and pressing Delete (or Backspace on Windows). (Pressing D and then X on the keyboard first sets the foreground and background colors to black and white, and then swaps them, making white the foreground color.)

Reduce the opacity of the Overlay layer (use the Opacity slider at the top of the Layers palette), and use the Rectangular Marquee tool to drag a selection in the center of the layer. This is the "hole" through which we'll view the image below. I made the selection a little larger than the image so that the shadow won't fall on the picture itself.

Delete this selection. Now grab the Type tool and add the text. The new type layer will be, by default, added above the current layer. That's fine, we won't be using it for long.

Once you've got the type set and positioned, Command-click (Control-click) on the type layer in the Layers palette to make a selection in the shape of the letters. Once you have the selection, drag the type layer to the Trash icon at the bottom of the Layers palette; it's no longer necessary.

With the type layer gone, the Overlay layer should be active. (If it's not, click on it once in the Layers palette.) Hit Delete/Backspace to delete the selection. Restore the Overlay layer to 100% opacity in the Layers palette.

Double-click on the Overlay layer to open the Layer Style dialog box and add a drop shadow. Keep the settings rather conservative. (For this example, I use settings of Distance: 5, Size: 5. The result should look like this:

There are several things we can do to modify this look. One of the easiest is to use the filter Texture> Texturizer on the Overlay layer. Adding a Sandstone finish gives the top layer some depth.

Or we can add a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer to give the top layer some color. Click on the New Adjustment Layer button at the bottom of the Layers palette and drag the cursor to Hue/Saturation.

When the Hue/Saturation dialog box opens, click OK to accept the defaults. Now in the Layers palette, make sure that the adjustment layer is above Overlay, then position the cursor on the line between the layers and hold down the Option/Alt key. The cursor will change to the "wedding bands" look.

Clicking on the line between the layers "marries" the adjustment layer to the Overlay layer, restricting its effects to that one layer. (Otherwise, any hue/saturation adjustment would be applied to the entire image.) Double-click on the left thumbnail in the adjustment layer to re-open the Hue/Saturation dialog box.

(The thumbnail on the right is a layer mask. Editing the mask restricts the effects of the adjustment layer.)

In the Hue/Saturation dialog box, click the Colorize button, drag the Lightness slider a little to the left, and then change the three sliders to suit your needs.

By using an adjustment layer, you can go back and change the color of Overlay by simply re-opening the Hue/Saturation dialog box.

In this case, after applying the color, I'll re-open the Layer Style for Overlay and reduce the drop shadow settings to Distance: 3, Size 3. This "cleans up" the edges of the text cutout.

(Thanks to George Leononen for the question that suggested this column.)