Make a Digital Patterned Alphabet

It’s amazingly easy to create digital patterned alphabets like those above using Photoshop CS or Photoshop Elements.

Open a new 8 ½ x 11-inch document at 72 psi resolution. Duplicate the background. This creates Layer 1, which has a transparent background.

You’ll need that when you want to cut and paste the individual letters into a layout. Delete the original background. Choose a chunky font for your patterned alphabet. You want one that has enough “real estate” to show off the pattern fill.

Open or create a pretty paper. I’m using one of my own papers: EMB_Seafoam_Paper.

You’ll need to repeat the process 26 times – well, 52 if you want to make lower and upper case letters. Type the letter “a” in black. You want the letters large enough that the alphabet fills most of the page. Mine are 123 pt.

Most paper files are 12 x 12 and 300 psi. That would be huge on top of your patterned alphabet, so reduce the size of the paper: Edit>Image Size; reduce resolution to 72 and size to 11 x 11 inches so as not to distort the pattern. It won’t matter that it is wider than your alpha document.

Click and drag your patterned paper onto the alphabet page. Then go back and close the paper without saving to preserve your original.

Go back to your patterned alphabet doc. Your patterned paper should be on top of the “a”. To see the “a” so you can work with it, have the paper layer active. In the Layers Palette, it should be gray while the other layer is lighter. If it’s not the active layer, click to the right of the layer’s title to activate it.

Now go to the top of the Layers Palette and reduce the paper’s opacity using the Opacity slider until you can see the letter “a” underneath. About 75% is usually good. The part of the paper that overlays the letter is what will be clipped onto it. Most likely you want to reduce the size so that more of the pattern shows.

To do this, select Edit>Transform>Scale. Go to one of the paper’s corners and, holding down the Shift key (to maintain the paper’s proportions), move the corner inward until you like how the paper fits over the alpha.

We’re ready to go but since we will be making 25 more letters, you can save a lot of time by grouping these first two layers. On the top of your screen, Click Layer>Group Layers and name the group "a". See how your paper layer indents itself? Click on your alpha layer and drag it up a bit until it snaps into Group a.

Left click on Group a in the Layers Palette and select Duplicate Group. Name this group “b”. Repeat this for the entire alphabet. It doesn’t matter that they’re on top of each other for now. When you’re done, Group z will be the active layer so we may as well start with that and work backwards.

Drag Group z to the lower right corner. Precision isn’t important at this point. Double click on the T box (Text) in Group z and edit the text from “a” to “z”. Now comes the fun part.

Activate Group z’s paper layer. Think of your new patterned alphabet as a paper punch. In digi-speak, a paper punch is called a Clipping Mask.

To punch out the alphabet using a Clipping Mask, press Ctrl+Alt+G (or Ctrl+G in earlier Photoshop versions).

Go back to the Opacity slider and increase the opacity to show off your pattern. I went all the way to 100%. Merge the mask and alphabet together by left clicking on Group z in the Layers Palette and select Merge Group.

You’ve punched out your first patterned alphabet! Now you might want to give it some style.

At the bottom of the Layers Palette, there is a scripty “f”. I don’t know why Photoshop used “f’ to stand for styles, so I think of it as a way to “fancy up” my layers. Click on the fancy “f” and a list of options comes up.

Play around until you get a look you like. My Seafoam Blue Alphas use two styles at their default settings: Bevel/Emboss and Inner Shadow.

To review the process:

• 1. Move a group to its approximate place on the page;
• 2. Text edit the alphabet layer to the letter you want;
• 3. Nudge the paper layer to position it;
• 4. Ctrl+Alt+G to clip;
• 5. Increase paper opacity;
• 6. Merge group; and
• 7. Add Style(s).

When you’ve created the entire alphabet, align the letters leaving enough space between them so that you will be able to use the square Marquee tool to select, copy and paste each one into a new layout.

Save the file as a Photoshop document to preserve the layers. You may want to add punctuation marks or other special symbols later. Then save as a PNG file. A PNG file is one layer but preserves the transparent background so you cut and paste your alphas into your layouts.

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