Put an Image or Photo Into Text with Photoshop Elements

By Sue Chastain, About.com Guide

You may have seen the text effect where a photo or other image is used to fill a block of text. This effect is easy to do with the layer grouping feature in Photoshop Elements. Old timers may know this technique as a clipping path. In this tutorial you'll work with the type tool, layers, adjustment layers, and layer styles.

I have used Photoshop Elements 6 for these instructions, but this technique should work in older versions as well. If you are using an older version, your palettes may be arranged a little differently than what is shown here.

Let's begin:

Open Photoshop Elements in Full Edit Mode.

Open the photo or image you'd like to use as the fill for your text. For simplicity, I am using one of the free patterns offered on this site.

For this effect, we need to convert the background to a layer, because we will be adding a new layer to be the background.

To convert the background to a layer, double click on the background layer in the layer's palette. (Window > Layers if your layers palette is not already open.) Name the layer "Fill Layer" then click OK.

Note: It is not necessary to name the layer, but as you start working more with layers it helps to keep them organized if you add descriptive names.