Masking

Text Behind Your Subject Without the Headache: Photoshop's Dynamic Text Tool Explained
Video Tutorials

Text Behind Your Subject Without the Headache: Photoshop's Dynamic Text Tool Explained

I had a client brief land on my desk last month – an e-commerce brand wanting a series of campaign images with bold headline text weaving behind the product and the model holding it. Layered typography, cinematic feel, tight turnaround. The old approach would have meant manually painting masks, nudging type, and rebuilding everything when the copy changed at the last minute (and it always changes at the last minute). I knew there had to be a cleaner system, and then I came across this tutorial.

Blending Photos and Graphics in Photoshop: What Aaron Nace's Workflow Taught Me About Working Smarter
Video Tutorials

Blending Photos and Graphics in Photoshop: What Aaron Nace's Workflow Taught Me About Working Smarter

Last month I was three days into a campaign for a Chicago ad agency that wanted product shots with an illustrated, graphic-novel-esque feel. Clean photography married to hand-drawn-style overlays, vintage textures, dramatic shadows that didn’t exist on set. My compositing workflow handled the heavy lifting, but I kept hitting friction at the illustration integration stage. The blending felt mechanical. The lighting lied. I knew the gap between what I was producing and what the client was imagining, and I didn’t love that gap.

How Photoshop's Dynamic Text Tool Finally Solves the Text-Behind-Subject Problem
Video Tutorials

How Photoshop's Dynamic Text Tool Finally Solves the Text-Behind-Subject Problem

I’ve been doing text-behind-subject composites for clients since it became the default language of lifestyle advertising. You know the look: a model or product sits in front of a headline, the text tucks naturally behind them, and the whole thing reads as designed rather than pasted together. For years, my workflow involved manually painting masks, nudging layer order, and quietly cursing whenever the client sent a revised headline at the last minute and I had to rebuild the whole thing from scratch.