'Stenciling' with Adobe Photoshop CS5

I decided last minute that I'd send one of the photos I recently got of Maggie along with a holiday card this year for  Easter.  After playing around in Photoshop I found a really neat technique so I figured I'd share it!  It's super easy and leaves the look of stenciled letters onto the photograph in any text you want.

 Step One  The first thing you need to do after opening your photo in Photoshop is to add text.  I am currently using the Extended version of Adobe Photoshop CS5, but I think most of what I've done here can be done in other versions as well.  You can do this easily by selecting the Type tool from the toolbar on the left.  Then hover your mouse pointer where you'd like your text to be, click and type your phrase.  You can customize your text with the options bar at the top of the screen, changing things like font, text size, color, etc.  After I added my text I rotated it using the Free Transform option found under the Edit dropdown at the top of the screen.

Step Two  After typing your text, highlight it and select the Layer Style option under the Layer dropdown box at the top of your screen, and select Outer Glow, as seen below.  You can change the color of your glow under the structure section inside this box.

Step Three  The final step is to adjust the opacity of your text using your blending options.  To do this, after selecting the Outer Glow layer style, click on the Blending Options: Default option just above your style options.  This will open up the blending options available to you.  Then set your Fill Opacity to zero percent under the Advance Blending option as seen below:

And that is how you end up with the finished product, which looks like you stenciled or masked text onto your photo.  I thought this was a fun looking option for my text, and even though I'm obviously a beginner at this stuff it was pretty easy to figure out!  Here's another look at the finished version:

Hoping you all enjoy a happy start to your week and find yourself with a little free time to create something special.   ♥ Sheri