Really Cool Masking Text Effect For Video in Adobe Photoshop

Have you ever seen a video where an object, whether it be a thing or some text, reveals itself from behind another object? I’m sure you have; we all have. These instances are akin to magic if you’re not well versed in the world of video production. For the longest time, I wondered how the effect was accomplished. I always thought, whatever the method, it must have been challenging.

What if I told you that this type of effect is easily accomplishable (if that’s even a word) in less than ten minutes while using an application such as Adobe Photoshop? Guess what. It’s true. Having something slide out from behind something else in video is so simple to do. And the concept behind the trick is even easier to understand than engaging in the labor necessary to finish the project. I’m quite excited to share this type of thing with you because I already know you’re going to love it.

In today’s post, I’m going to use a video clip of some water, a mountain range and some stars in the sky moving in the background. Since the water and mountain range will be stationary, I’ll use these two elements as the objects the text moves up from behind. The text I’ll be using will be similar in setup as the text I wrote about in my previous post. If you aren’t familiar with that post, please take a look at it before going any further.

Adding Blending Modes to Text For Video in Adobe Photoshop

The Demo Video

While you’ll certainly see the final video down below, I at least want you to see what part of it looks like now. Check this out.

Basically, the stars in the sky will be moving in a time lapse fashion. I’ll make it so the words “NIGHT SKY” rise up from behind the mountains. It’s going to be so cool.

Adding the Text

As I just mentioned, the text I’ll add will follow the same concept as the text I wrote about previously. I’ll use the same font and everything, but this time, I’ll make the size 300 and the tracking 100. That will make the letters cover more area.

Take a look at the text over the video. I plan on having the text position begin down at the bottom of the screen and then move up into the stars, where it will sit for the remaining time in the clip.

Animating the Text

As I’ve already explained, I’d like the text to rise up from the water into the sky. The way I’ll accomplish this is by adding a few animation keyframes to the Timeline panel. To get started, I’ll head down there and click the small arrow that sits to the left of the layer name.

After the animation options are revealed, I’ll make sure the playhead is at the beginning of the video and I’ll click the Transform stopwatch (to the left of the word “Transform”). That will create the first keyframe. After that, I’ll move the playhead to the time at which I’d like the text to cease movement. In this case, since the entire clip is about 13 seconds long, I figure the four second mark is about right for the text to stop in the sky. I’ll hold down the Shift key on my keyboard so the text stays aligned vertically with its beginning position and I’ll drag it to its final destination. After I let go of my mouse, the second keyframe will appear.

For a very thorough explanation of how to use keyframes for animation in Photoshop, please click through to the post below.

How to Use Keyframes For Animation with Video in Adobe Photoshop

Masking Out the Text Behind the Mountains

This is where things get fun. My goal is to mask out the text behind the mountains. To do this, I’ll need to first click on the video layer in the Layers panel to activate it. Then, I’ll head over to the left toolbar and I’ll click on the Quick Selection Tool to make it active.

I’ll resize the tool and then click and drag it over the area of the mountains and water until those areas are selected.

Now that the area I’d like to hide the text behind is selected, (making sure the playhead is back at the 0:00 time again) I’ll go back to the Layers panel and click to select the text layer. Then, I’ll visit the Layer > Layer Mask > Hide Selection menu item and click.

When I do this, I’ll see two things happen. First, I’ll see the text seemingly disappear. That’s not a concern because I know it’s just masked out. Second, I’ll see the new mask appear in the Layers panel. Because I chose to hide the selection, the mask will be black at the bottom and white at the top. Also, since it’s the text layer that has the mask attached to it, it’s the text that will be hidden while in the lower part of the video and visible while at the top.

In the above screenshot, I’m showing you the layers contained in the Layers panel At the top is the text layer with the mask attached to it. Right below that, you can see the effects applied to the text. Below that is an adjustment layer I added earlier to make the video appear with slightly more contrast than the original and at the bottom is the video itself.

Fixing the Layer Style Error

I just took a look at the text animation and almost everything is perfect. There is one small problem though. Take a look at this:

If you look at the above screenshot, you’ll see that as the text rises in the sky from behind the mountains, the glow effect bleeds into the mountains themselves (the edge of the mask). I don’t want this to happen, so I’ll need to deal with it now. To separate the layer style from the mask, I’ll double click on the text layer in the Layers panel. This will open the Layer Style dialog box. Inside the dialog, I’ll click on Blending Options in the left column. Then, in the Advanced Blending area, I’ll check the box that says Layer Mask Hides Effects. The moment I do that, I’ll see that style bleed disappear. Finally, I can export the video and take a look at the genius that’s been created.

Now let’s check out the video.

Masking & Animating in Adobe Photoshop Video

——

I hope I clearly explained how to use masks in Adobe Photoshop video to create layer effects, such as having one object transition (seemingly) from behind another object. If you have any questions regarding this post, please leave them in the comment area below. Thanks for reading!