Quick invitation card in photoshop

Many photographers use fisheye lens, which often add humor to a portrait. In this lesson we will use it for type to make our message jump out a bit more. On top of that, we will also look at the use of the magnificent clipping mask!

1. To get the ideal effect, I looked for a font that is heavy and round and found this rainy day font by pizzadude at dafont.

2. Type your message, keep the font size smaller than what you intended, it will grow later.


3. Select the Rectangular marquee tool and draw a box with your message right in the middle.

4. Filter > Distort > Spherize, say yes to rasterize the layer. With the preview box ticked and zoom out if needed to see the whole text in action within the small display box. Pick Normal under Mode, adjust the % whatever you see fits. 100% I picked.


5. Now the text gets a bit blurry, Filter > Sharpen > Smart Sharpen, keep Basic selected I use amount 80%, radius 2px and remove gaussian blur, click OK (filter > sharpen or sharpen edges overdo it sometimes)


6. I'm gonna use this lovely flowers photo. Copy and paste it on top of the text in the invition card file. Ctrl+Alt+G (Win) or Command+Option+G (Mac) to make a clipping mask.


7. I quite like the look of the above like it's illuminated. But if you want more image shows through. Paint bucket or use a brush to fill the hollow bit of this font. Add a little ribbon underneath. Done!


Note* the same effect can be done in illustrator, Effect > Warp > Fisheye. Which I find to obtain the effect I want I need to draw an empty (no fill, no stroke) square around the object. Have fun!