Photoshop Tutorial: Type Effects with a transparent overlay

By Jennifer Farley | Jul 22 2008 |

This is a quick tutorial to show you how to use a Layer Effect in Photoshop with a little bit of a spin. As you might know, the Layer Effects allow you to easily add things like drop shadows, glows, strokes and more. This method uses the same layer effects but plays around with blending modes and the Fill Opacity.

  1. Open a file and add some type. I’m using a font called Base02 – quite a grungy font here. It doesn’t matter what colour you choose because we’re getting rid of the colour anyway.

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  2. Double-click on the name of the Type Layer in the Layers palette. This opens up the Layer Style dialog box. I’ve added a drop shadow and a red stroke to the text.

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  1. And now for the magic bit…. Click on the Blending Options Default option while still in the Layer Styles dialog box. Under Advanced Blending, reduce the Fill Opacity to 0 – this removes the colour of the text completely while holding onto any effects you’ve applied. Pretty cool.
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This technique is not just for Type layers either. It works with all layers. The joy of making the fill transparent is that you don’t have to worry about background colours. Here’s a few more examples created using the steps above.

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Posted by Jennifer Farley | Filed Under All, Photoshop Tutorials 

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