Not Quite Scarborough Fair

Are you going to Scarborough Fair? Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme. Even though there is no parsley in the photo it will do nicely in demonstrating how to create Text Effects using Type Masks which simulates cutting the letters out of the picture.

This picture has three herbs: sage, rosemary, and thyme.I thought it would be neat to have "basil" cut out of the basil in the picture, "sage" cut out of the sage, and so on.

• Open photo of herb (background)
• As always, duplicate this layer (background copy)
• Select this background copy layer so that it is the active layer
• From the tool bar select Horizontal Type Mask Tool
• Select font style and size
• Position cursor on the correct place on the picture you want and type text. Entire picture will be covered with red. This is a bit unnerving at first but don't be alarmed. After typing text, click any where.
• Text will have white moving dashes around it on the same background copy. To put these "cut out letters" somewhere that you can work on them:
• Select Edit>Copy
• Create new layer
• Select Edit>Paste into this new layer (or File>New From Clipboard)

Original

The word "herbs" spans the entire width of the picture so that background of each of the herbs—sage, rosemary and thyme are revealed. For the remaining text only the corresponding part of the picture was selected, i.e. basil is of the basil part of the picture, etc. To make it more interesting I chose a different font for each herb.

Old English Text MT

Cooper Black

Georgia

Ravie

You can do anything you want to do to these new layers of "cut out letters". Since they are no longer considered text, any effects (not just text effects) can be applied. However; I liked text effects for this project and I chose a combination of  two Layer Styles: Drop Shadows>High and Bevels>Simple Pillow Emboss.

Cut Out Letters with Combo of Two Layer Styles Applied