Silhouette Overlay Tutorial

  Before I begin with the tutorial, I would like to show you the final product to give you a simple idea of what the finished product can look like.

    The concept is to put something as a silhouette with words over a photo that helps to create the environment around the silhouette and sets the tone of the lettering used.

First begin by creating a new document, as seen above. I just created it as a normal piece of paper although you can make it any size you want as it will be finished as the size of a photo you choose.

After you have created your document begin brainstorming different ideas for the lettering and overall concept, I will be showing you the bird "Free as a Bird."

Once you have chosen your concept, simply search for the main subject (in this case the bird) and the background (in this case the sky and sun photo).

These are the two photos I will use.

  Drag or copy and paste your first photo (the bird) into your document. Then, using the pen tool with no fill, outline the subject (the bird) fully.

Once this is done, remove the photo and fill the outline in black. Take away the stroke and select the Blob Brush tool. Give it a white fill and write whatever you would like on the black subject. In this case the bird will have "free as a bird" on it.

Now drag in the the secondary background photo (the sky here). Then resize it and place it behind the main subject. The only thing left to do is select everything but the background photo and make the opacity 80%.

You should then have something similar to this, you can move around the silhouette as you please in order to get the desired finished product.