How To Fill Text With An Image In Photoshop
You can fill an image with another image, or fill text with an image in Photoshop. There’s a neat tool called the clipping mask tool that lets you do this easily and it’s been a part of Photoshop for years.
Choosing An Image
To get started you need a good image that is high resolution and that can fill the text you want to type. There’s no limit to how long the text should be but for the sake of aesthetics, don’t fill a paragraph’s worth of text with an image. Keep it as short as you can. Also, when you’re choosing an image, remember what your final file will look like. The image shouldn’t clash with the background or other elements in the file.
Fill Text With An Image
Open a new Photoshop file and paste the image you want to use into the file as its very own layer.
Next, use the text tool to type in your text. It’s best that you go with a bold typeface. If the letters are too thin, the image won’t show well and the overall effect is going to be poor.
Now that you have the two basic layers you need i.e., the image and the text, it’s time to add the clipping mask. But first, drag the image layer so that it’s on top of the text layer i.e., the text should be hidden behind the image.
Next, go to Layer>Create Clipping Mask.
And here’s the result;
It’s a little hard to read, and kind of tacky so maybe adding a stroke around it will make it better. It’s easier to read now and the point of all this is that you can still add effects to the text layer even after you’ve filled it with an image.
This effect is pretty easy to achieve and you can use it for filling images with images as well. You can resize the image you’ve filled the text with anytime by using the transform tools. Some effects, such as the color overlay effect can’t be used when you’ve added a clipped mask. The effect will apply like normal however it will hide the filled in image and leave you with a monotone colored text snippet.
Don’t get carried away with this effect. It’s easy to apply but tricky to get right. Always remember that your final image shouldn’t be so busy that it fails to deliver a message.
