Big Letter Postcard

The next time you go on vacation, take a few pictures with this vintage postcard in mind. It's fairly easy, but it has a number of steps. Follow along. I'll hold your hand.

Open a new document in Photoshop and select a size (I used 8"x10" - which I would change if I did this again -see the last picture and instructions)

Type your city name in a simple bold font. I've used "Impact". In this case, I typed the two words on separate layers so that I could treat them differently. I selected the layer with "Francisco" and warped it by choosing the warp command on the far right of the type option bar. (it has a "T" with an arc underneath it) There are a number of shapes, but I chose the flag and altered the bend until it had the curve I liked.

Move the two type layers around until they are in the right positions, relative to each other, then merge them together.

Type is made as a vector (whatever that is) and in order to proceed, we need to change it into a pixel format. Depending on your version of Photoshop, the command is "rasterize" or "simplify layer". (it should be under the LAYER heading in your tool bar) Your type layer will now be pixelated (in a good way).

Now comes the magic. Highlight your type layer (in the layers palette) and select the move tool. Hit the "alt/option" key and left arrow on your keyboard. Hit these about 15 times and you should get a mess that looks like the above.

Highlight the top layer (in the layers palette). Use the magic wand to select that layer. Remember to deselect "contiguous" in the options bar.

Go to EDIT>STROKE and make a white frame around each letter. (I used 15 pixels and "inside") SELECT>DESELECT then use the magic wand again to select the areas inside the white frames. (sorry no picture)

Now open up one of your photos and go to HUE&SATURATION to pump up the saturation. Duplicate this layer then go to FILTERS>ARTISTIC>POSTER EDGES to make lines around the your objects (in this case, buildings). If the lines are too heavy, play with the opacity slider in the layers palette to tweak the size of the lines. We are trying to duplicate the hand colored illustrations used in the original postcards. Merge the two layers together.

SELECT>ALL then EDIT>COPY

Go back to your word and select the EDIT>PASTE INTO. The photo will appear in the selected parts of the word(s). You may have to use the move tool to resize the photo to fill the letters. Your postcard should look like the above at this point. (remember that the areas inside the white frames are selected with the magic wand)

SELECT>DESELECT.

Play with your background photo the with the same tools you did for the first one (my houses). I wish I had chosen a photo with different colors than my first photo, but live and learn.

Drag the background photo into the word document, beneath the word(s). You may wish to lower the opacity of this layer to allow the words (San Francisco) to stand out.

Add "Greetings From" and the state name in a contrasting color and font. LAYER>FLATTEN IMAGE.

Go to FILTERS>TEXTURE>TEXTURIZER>BURLAP to give the postcard that linen-look that so many of these vintage cards have. I find that I have to over texturize this step for it to show up in the printing. Find what works best for you.

Now for my "oops" moment. I realized that my proportions were wrong and I needed to elongate my image to make it look like a postcard. I opened another document, 3 1/2" x 5" then dragged my postcard into it and using the move tool I stretched it to make it the right dimensions.

With all the money you saved on postcards, you can afford to take another vacation.