Create a cool text portrait in Photoshop

Create a cool text portrait in Photoshop

Learn how to create a striking typographic portrait poster in Adobe Photoshop, transforming a standard photo into an artwork where text defines the contours of the subject’s face. You’ll practice essential techniques: precise subject selection, background preparation, thoughtful text integration, and subtle refinements to enhance legibility and visual impact.

Watch the Video

Video by Blue Lightning. Any links or downloads mentioned by the creator are available only on YouTube

Practical Tips for Text Portrait Posters in Photoshop

  • Desaturate your base image to black and white early in the process, as this simplifies the contrast adjustments and prepares the image for monochromatic text integration.
  • Refine the edges of your subject, especially around intricate areas like hair, using the Refine Edge tool to ensure a clean separation from the background.
  • Adjust image levels to enhance contrast, making shadows pure black and highlights bright, which creates clear areas for text application and improves overall definition.
  • Blend hair edges into the background using a Layer Mask and a soft brush set to reveal the black background, ensuring a seamless transition and avoiding harsh cutouts.
  • Use the Dodge Tool and a low-opacity brush to selectively brighten areas where text might be difficult to read, improving word legibility without overexposing the portrait details.

Explore more techniques and creative approaches to text-based designs and portrait effects.

How to make a text poster of a portrait in Photoshop
Discover the artistry of text-driven graphic posters with BlueLightningTV's latest Photoshop tutorial. This engaging guide teaches you how to craft a stunning visual tribute to your favorite celebrity, musician, poet, writer, or leader by seamlessly blending their iconic lyrics, prose, poetry, or speech with their portrait. The tutorial walks you through each step, from selecting and preparing the perfect image to intricately wrapping text around the contours of their face. Watch tutorial
Create a Striking Text Portrait Poster in Photoshop
Transforming an ordinary portrait into a captivating text-based artwork presents a unique creative challenge in Photoshop. Often, the frustration lies in making text appear to organically wrap around a subject’s contours rather than just sitting flat over the image. Achieving this seamless integration, especially when dealing with complex shapes, can feel like navigating an intricate technical puzzle. This tutorial offers a clear pathway to mastering text portrait effects using advanced masking
Create a Creative Text Portrait Poster in Photoshop
The author, Marty Geller from Blue Lightning TV, provides a tutorial on how to create a creative text portrait poster in Photoshop. This project allows you to design a powerful, custom text portrait poster of a musician, songwriter, poet, or author, featuring their lyrics, poems, or prose. The process involves using Photoshop to arrange the text elements in a visually striking way, highlighting the subject's creative work. By following the step-by-step instructions, you can craft a unique and p
Crafting a Typographic Poster in Adobe Photoshop
Join Adobe’s UX Growth Designer, Curtis Ying, as he transforms a Swiss Typographic poster through an engaging design process. With the input from the Instagram community, this presentation showcases how he carefully selects a bold red background that sets the tone for the entire piece. Throughout the process, Curtis shares his techniques for integrating organic shapes and text that harmoniously flow within the design. Utilizing various Photoshop tools, he guides you step-by-step, making it easy

Get tutorials & freebies delivered to you.

Subscribe to the Photoshop Roadmap newsletter, a weekly roundup of new tutorials, insights and quality downloads, trusted by 6500+ readers.

You might also like

How to Expand Photos Beyond Their Edges Using AI Generative Expand in Photoshop

Sometimes your best photos need more breathing room or a different aspect ratio. Generative Expand in Photoshop lets you extend your canvas beyond the original image boundaries, using AI to intelligently fill in missing areas with content that matches your scene. This technique works for changing portrait photos to landscape...

How to Create Digital Scrapbook Carousels in Photoshop

Digital scrapbook pages capture memories beautifully, but a single page limits your storytelling. Creating a carousel format lets you design multiple connected panels that work together as one cohesive piece while giving viewers more content to explore. This technique uses frames, custom shapes, and smart export settings to build templates...

How to Use Auto Align Layers in Photoshop for Perfect Layer Alignment

When working with multiple layers that need perfect alignment, manual positioning often falls short. Slight camera movement, different crops, or rotated images can make precise alignment seem impossible through visual adjustment alone. Auto Align Layers automatically handles rotation, scaling, and positioning to create perfect layer alignment, even when images have...

How to Use Nano Banana Pro in Adobe Firefly for Advanced AI Image Generation

Adobe Firefly now includes Gemini 3 with Nano Banana Pro, offering sharper 2K image generation with improved text clarity and precision blending. This advanced AI model works seamlessly within Firefly's generative workspace, enabling powerful workflows like multi-image composition and virtual try-on effects. The integration provides access to sophisticated...

Create Colorful Retro Text Compositions in Photoshop

Retro design trends continue to captivate audiences with their bold colors and geometric shapes. This tutorial demonstrates how to build a complete vintage-inspired composition using text, geometric elements, and vibrant color schemes that capture the essence of classic graphic design. You'll learn to combine typography with custom shapes,...

Photoshop's New Color and Temperature Tool for Advanced Color Grading

Photoshop's latest update introduces temperature and tint controls directly into the adjustment layer panel, bringing white balance tools from Camera Raw into the main editing workspace. This addition transforms color grading workflows by enabling precise local adjustments with custom brushes and blend modes. The new Color and Vibrance...

You’ve successfully subscribed to Photoshop Roadmap
Welcome back! You’ve successfully signed in.
Great! You’ve successfully signed up.
Success! Your email is updated.
Your link has expired
Success! Check your email for magic link to sign-in.