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See-Through Text

This tutorial will show you how to put "see though" text on an image so that the text seems to be see through/take on the colors of the image below. You will use layers, the text tool, alpha channels, and the drop shadow effect.

1. Open the image that you want to put the see through text on.
   
   
2. Activate the text tool and click on your image.
   
   
3. Click on your image and choose the following settings:
   Fonts
   Name: your text choice
   Size: whatever suits your image
   Floating: checked
   Antialias: checked
   Text effects
   text color: white
   
   
4. Type in what you want to say and click OK
   
   
5. With the text tool still active, move the text to the position on the image that you want it to be.
   
   
6. With the text still selected, go selections/save to alpha channel.
   Click ok and ok again. (you can give your alpha channel selection a name in the second screen if you'd like to before clicking on ok...)
   
   
7. Promote the floating selection to a layer. (Selections/Promote to layer) This will deselect your text.
   
   
8. Create a new layer. (Layers/New Rastor Layer)
   
   
9. With the new layer active, go Selections/Load from Alpha Channel and choose the alpha channel selection that you just made.
   
   
10. 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...
    Color - Black
    Opacity - 100%
    Blur - 6
    Offsets - Vertical and Horizonital - 0
    
    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.
    
    
11. Move the opacity slider on the "Promoted Selection" layer down to about 20% or whatever looks good to you...
    
    
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. Go Layers/Merge/Merge Visible and save your image as a .jpg for use on your web page.