Photoshop: How to Ghost an Image into a Photograph

I've always thought it was wild to see an image and then see another floating inside it so subtly that you didn't notice it from far off but only when you got up close. I was recently asked to make some "Gothic" style note cards and possibly include the recipients name on them somewhere. It was the perfect project for what I call ghosting, just because I have no idea what it is really called.

I started with a night shot of my front yard. I took it on a bright winter night with a full moon and some clouds. When I up loaded the picture it was a big black rectangle with a white fuzzy area where the moon should have been glowing through the branches of an oak tree. It looked like an "oops" that should have been deleted. NEVER DELETE THEM! They can be saved!

I opened this black image and went up to the tool bar: Image - Adjustments - Levels. I moved the white and gray value slides along the scale until I got a nice image where I could tell what everything was supposed to be and it was still night. Yes it was grainy and diffused but then that is kind of spooky and Gothic so it worked...at least it works with my limited idea of what Gothic is.

Next I used Illustrator to create the name I needed. I chose one of the many spooky looking fonts I got on a CD for $5 at a local computer show to spell out the name. I settled on one called Buffied and changed it to outlines. I then copied it into Photoshop, the default of the program gave it it's own layer with a transparent background. Initially when I thought I would select all of the black change it to white and decrease the opacity in the layers palette. I tried it but I wasn't happy. It didn't look the way I wanted it to look, it wasn't as subtle as I would have liked and the edges

As always, just to be on the safe side, I made a copy of my background in the layers palette. This is always a good idea. Be sure to save after you make the copy so you will have all of your original layers just in case something goes wrong. The cardinal rule of any graphics program is to SAVE OFTEN. I then went back to the layer with the name and selected all of the black. Once it was selected I clicked down to make my background copy layer the active layer and went back to the tool bar: Image - Adjustments- Levels. Using the slides you can make the name lighter or darker but it will still be the actual picture instead of an overlay or a knock out.

I like this because I was able to control the levels better and I was maintaining the texture of the picture I started with. I also tried moving the name around to several locations to see where it looked best. In order to do this you have to go back to the name layer and move it there then select it again and move back to the background copy layer as your active layer. If you stay on the background copy layer and try to move the selection you will actually be moving that part of the picture not the area of selection.

The cards are ½ sheet of 8 ½" x 11" black cardstock cut the short way to be 5 ½" x 8 ½" and folded in half. I printed one page of glossy photo paper with four copies of the image on it; the ending image size was 4 ¾" x 3 ½". After cutting them apart I mounted them on red cardstock sheets that were 5 1/8" x 3 7/8" so I would have a red border/matt. I then mounted that to the black cardstock. A punch out of a dragon in a brighter red than the matt and a small Swarovski crystal eye completed the look.