Photoshop Tips
Mastering Clipping Groups in Photoshop
By Colin Smith
of PhotoshopCafe.com
Adapted from How to Do Everything with Photoshop CS (McGraw-Hill)
Dateline: October 27, 2004
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Clipping groups are an underused and interesting effect, although just the words "clipping groups" sends fear down the spines of novice and intermediate Photoshop users alike. The concept is really not as hard as it sounds. I will attempt to de-mystify this technique and you will be creating your own clipping groups in a few moments.
The best way for me to explain clipping groups is to liken them to looking through binoculars. When you look through binoculars, everything is in a figure of eight shape. There is much more than what you can see, but everything is "clipped" to those lenses. Imagine the binocular lenses are the base layer and the view is the clipped layer. To create a clipping group, you must start with a layer other than a background. This layer must contain a combination of solid and transparent areas. Shape layers and text layers are ideal. This will become our base layer. Anything we apply to this layer as a clipping group will fit into the shape of the base layer. Note that you can combine layer masks with clipping groups for interesting results.
Let's demonstrate this effect.
1 - Begin with some text, a background and a layer that you want to clip to the text.
 
2 - Place the image above the text. Remember that the base clipping layer must be underneath the layers you want to clip.
3 - Here is where it all happens. Place your mouse between the two layers you want to clip and hold the Alt key (Option on a Mac)sections/secrets/3 you will now see a figure of eight logo. This means that the two layers will be converted into a clipping group.
4 - Click your mouse and the clipping group will be created. Notice that the clipped layers are indented.
The illustration below shows what happened to our image. Notice that the leaves are now contained inside the text. Nothing is finalized, to ungroup the layers repeat step 3, or drag the clipped layer to another location on the layers palette.
Below is an example of a clipping group dressed up a little. We used a duplicate of the leaves layer for the background and faded it out using a levels adjustment layer. We then clipped an unmodified copy to the text. Finally we added a drop shadow for a little effect.
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This article is excerpted from How to Do Everything with Photoshop CS (McGraw-Hill) and is reprinted here by permission.
Colin Smith is the founder of photoshopcafe.com, a thriving Photoshop community.
He is also a regular columnist for the NAPP members site and Planet Photoshop.
He has authored and co-authored 6 books including New Masters of Photoshop, Foundation Photoshop, Photoshop Most Wanted, Photoshop Trade Secrets and Photoshop to Dreamweaver. He creates video tutorials that are available at www.photoshopcd.com. When he is not writing, Colin makes his crust as a freelance graphic designer. See his portfolio at www.pixeloverload.com.
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