Adding Text to Photographs

With the current popularity of digital scrapbooking, I’ve seen several techniques used that I have really wanted to try to incorporate into my traditional scrapbooking. Putting words directly on my pictures before printing is at the very top of that list.

I used Adobe Photoshop Elements to do my editing but any photo manipulation software program should work. Basically, a new layer is applied to the photograph that consists of text on a transparent background.

Before getting to work, here are some things I discovered that you might want to keep in mind to make your job easier:

• The photo you edit needs to have a background that isn’t too busy.


• There should to be a spot for the text to fit or you’ll have to add to the photo’s dimensions and fill in the background to match.


• Converting the photos to grey scale takes some of the color matching worry out of working with the text.


• Sometimes the color that you see on your computer isn’t the exact color that comes out when photos are printed by a lab.

I’d like to walk you through the process using one of my photos and then show a few variations that you might want to try yourself. I chose to work with a simple photo first. This is my great-nephew Connor.

I call it simple because the background is a solid color. There’s nothing distracting here to take away from the text that I’ll add or his handsome little face.

I opened this photo in Elements and selected the text tool on the tool bar that’s located to the left of the screen. It’s the T tool that’s in the second column, third row down.

As you can see from this screen shot, there is an area to select the font that you want to use and to adjust the size. I chose to use the font “Evanesence” to type in his name and then I clicked on the black box that shows in the text bar to select a color. It didn’t matter what color I chose as long as it was light because I was going to convert this photo to black and white before having it printed.

To convert to black and white is very simple. Just go to the tool bar and click on Image. Several options drop down; first select Mode, and then Grayscale. Next, a message pops up saying “Changing modes will affect layer compositing. Flatten image before mode change?” If you are sure that you have the text the way you want it, select flatten. If not, you need to fix the text before flattening because after this process the text isn’t changeable. The final step is to save your work. I always use the same title and just change the number that follows. That way I’ll have both my original and my edited photo.

Now all that’s left to do is to print the photos and scrap with it. This is the layout that I made for Connor. I chose to keep things simple so it wouldn’t take away from the photo.

The other images that I worked with needed a bit more editing. I’m showing you the original and my edited photos.

To make this photo wide enough I had to change the canvas size and then use the clone brush to color in the background before I added the text. Below is another example that worked the same way. However I didn’t have to add very much to its original width. Both sets of these photos are of my beautiful great-niece Hannah.

I also chose text as a way to make two photos of my great-nephew Alec at different ages work together. He has loved chocolate almost as much as his Aunt Missy since he was just a little guy. Here he is at around 1 and at 7 with chocolate on his mouth. I think these are my favorites of the ones I worked with.

It was fun scrapping these photos. I hope you decide to give this digital technique a try. If I can do it, I think anyone can. If you have any questions just let me know.

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