Introduction
[Farmer's Market] >> In this tutorial, you'll create an image in Adobe Photoshop [Farmer's Market] for use on different social media platforms.
You will be introduced to Photoshop basics, like working with photos, filters, adding text, and exporting.
You can apply these skills to making images for different social media platforms, websites, and much more.
To start your project, you can use the sample image available from the tutorial page or a photo of your own.
Choose File, Open, and navigate to the image.
Opening an image and preparing it for social media
Select it, and click Open.
By the way, a great place to find images for use in your own projects is Adobe Stock.
Over here, in the libraries panel, you can search millions of images in Adobe Stock, to download directly in Photoshop, immediately.
To make the most of Adobe Stock from within the desktop products, learn more in other Adobe Learn tutorials at Adobe.com.
We are going to be adding some text on top of this image.
Now, a colorful contrasty photo can actually compete with the text.
Blurring the background with smart filters
So we will first blur the photo, using a Photoshop filter.
Choose Filter, Convert for Smart Filters.
In Photoshop, you need to use smart filters, so you can edit the filter.
Otherwise, you won't be able to change the filter later.
Click OK.
Now we'll apply the filter.
Choose Filter, Blur, Gaussian Blur.
In the dialog box that appears, change the radius value to blur the image to your liking, and then click OK.
In the layers panel, you can double-click the Gaussian Blur you see here to edit those settings later on.
Let's do one more thing to make the text we're gonna create more readable.
We'll create a translucent circle on top of the photograph to offset the text.
Creating a translucent shape to support text
We'll make a new layer for the circle, so we have the editing flexibility we need to make the circle translucent.
Choose Layer, New, Layer.
In the New Layer dialog, name the layer "Circle" and click OK.
Now we'll create a circle on this empty layer by filling a selection with color.
Click and hold down the rectangular marquee tool, and select the elliptical marquee tool.
Hold the shift key down as you click and drag in the design, to make a circular selection.
Release the mouse button and then the key.
The shift key makes the selection a perfect circle.
In the swatches panel, select a light color.
Choose Edit, Fill, and choose Foreground Color.
A foreground color is used most of the time when you use type tools, painting tools, or the shape tools.
Click OK.
Select the move tool, and with the new layer still selected, drag the circle to position it in the image.
Choose Select, Deselect.
To add an artistic effect to the circle, we'll adjust the circle layer, so it's partially transparent, using an opacity slider.
Click the arrow to the right of Opacity in the layers panel.
This slider lets you make the circle as transparent as you need.
Drag the slider until the circle looks good to you.
Now we'll add some text to our design.
Select the horizontal type tool.
Adding and styling text for the design
Go to the tool options bar up here, and select the size.
Type any new value, and press Enter or Return, so you can be sure to see the text initially.
Click somewhere in your design, type "Farmer's".
Press Enter or Return, and type "Market".
[Farmer's Market] Select the text by dragging over it.
[Farmer's Market] Choose a font from the menu here, picking any font you have.
If you're a Creative Cloud subscriber, you have access to Typekit.
Typekit is a service offering access to a vast library of fonts for use in desktop applications and on websites.
Align the text to center by clicking the center text button, here.
To change the color of the selected text so it's more visible on the light circle, click a dark color swatch in the swatches panel.
Now, we'll move the text into place.
Select the move tool, and drag the text into the center of the design, here.
A temporary magenta guide might appear telling you it's aligned to center.
Now let's save our project.
Choose File, Save As.
Saving and exporting the final image
Make sure to save it in the Photoshop format, with layers checked, so you'll have a layered file you can reopen for later editing.
Then click Save.
Click OK.
Once done, we can easily export the image, so you can upload it to your blog, Facebook, website, or wherever you need it.
Choose File, Export, Quick Export as PNG, choose a location, and click Save.
We now have our image ready to go, to put up on our social media sites, websites, or wherever you need.
