How do you..

Can someone tell me how to do this? What i have done was started with a transparent background and typed some letters into that layer but when I transfered the layer to my photo, it wasn't transparent anymore. but I would like to know how to make the lettering transparent like the photo below. Thanks

horizontal type mask tool, and adjust transparency or type what ever you want with the regular type tool, then adjust the transparency to your likings

just take the pic of whatever you are wanting, type whatever you want in a new layer on top of the pic, add a drop shadow and to the text and lower the opacity to 50% or less.

if you going to want it to look exactly like that, you can't just add a drop shadow to the text and lower the opacity. the drop shadow would show up behind the letters and actually make it darker and not lighter. your going to need to type the text in white, then make a duplicate of that layer and rasterize it. lower the opacity on the top one to about 20-30 give or take. then take the lower layer and get a selection of the letters. then inverse your selection and apply a mask on that layer. apply your drop shadow and it should come out pretty close to what you see there....