Tutorial : Create a picture from text (Black & White)

In this tutorial I'm gonna be showing you how to transform a simple portrait or an image of your choice into a  picture that looks like its made only from text.

Here are two examples : 

The effect is pretty simple to create and looks kinda cool , so let's get started :

1.)  Open up a picture in Photoshop and create a new layer (CTRL+SHIFT+N)

2.) Fill that new layer black with the Fill Tool (G) 

3.) Create a new text layer by selecting the Text Tool (T) and instead of just clicking somewhere to create the new text layer, click down at the very upper left of your canvas , hold down you mouse button and drag out a text area to the very bottom right. 

4.) Choose a small font and font color white and now fill up the whole area with a text of your choice. Its always good if the the text is related to the picture. For example the name of the person/object or something like that. (The smaller the font size is the more details you will get) 

5.) Now for the "tricky" part.  Select your text layer by clicking on it and add a new layer mask by pressing this button : 

6.) When the layer mask is created click your background layer to select it (the original image) hit CTRL+A to select all and CTRL+C to copy it. Then ALT+Click in the white layer mask box and paste the background image. Now all that's left is to click on the text layer icon again and you can see your result.

In case that was a little to quick here is a picture that shows what to click and what to do :

Optional : If you're not satisfied with the result, then there is a little trick to bring out the contours of the image a little better. 

• First you need to merge all the different layers you have by selecting them all and pressing CTLR+E. 
• (To select them all you click on the highest layer, in this case the text layer with the layer mask, hold down SHIFT and click on the lowest layer, our background layer. Then just hit CTRL+E)
• Then go to Image > Adjustments > Curves and there you can play around a little to bring out your contours the best

And that's it ! A nice effect that can be created within seconds. If you're looking for a way to have the same effect with a colored result see the next tutorial : here