In this tutorial we are going to create a popular text effect
that you may have seen on many movie posters and in advertising.
If you thought there would never be a use for threshold (the worst
thing you could do to an image); well we’ve found it’s purpose!
I picked this technique up from Scott Kelby at
PhotoshopWorld West
in San Fran.
Choose an image that has many vertical lines such as these trees
(image from my Photos.com collection).

Open it and run Image: Adjustments: Threshold.

In the Threshold dialog box simply move the slider
over to the left to wash out the image. You want to leave black
pixels to create that desire noise effect; don’t go too far unless
you want a very minor effect.

Now simply choose an area with the rectangular
marquee that looks like it contains the amount of scruffy noise that
you want.
Create a new document and add some large text with
the ‘T’ext tool. Here I’m using IMPACT font (again...my collection
so tiny). Make it fill up a large portion of the document. Note that
‘of’ is smaller. You can change this by selecting it in the text
editing field and independently adjusting the font size in the
Character palette.

Go back over to your selection in the threshold
document. You could also create your text document first (which is
what I meant to do but got caught up looking for the right potential
image and started recording).

Go to Edit: Copy or Ctrl/Cmd C. This will retain the
selection in the memory.

Go back to your text document and Ctrl click on the
layer icon of the text layer to select it

and now go to Edit: Paste Into. This is the same
effect essentially as creating a clipping group/mask.

Kinda dingy right now but remember you’ve got some
blending modes and opacity that you can play with. Remember that you
can use the moVe tool when on this layer to position where it will
look best (that’s up to you). Here I’ve got it on soft light.

You might want to change the color of the text to
make it more interesting. Get your ‘T’ tool and enter the text
editing field on the text layer (can be done from any layer that you
are on), now click on the color picker to bring up the color dialog
box and choose, say a red.


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