I'm trying to fill some text with a cardstock image (so it looks like I cut the letters out of cardstock). I expected to be able to do it the way I usually fill things -- select the letters (which I've converted to curves), invert the selection, then switch to the cardstock layer and hit "delete." But it won't maintain the selection of the letter shapes when I switch between layers.
So I looked up tutorials. I've found half a dozen tutorials that all say the exact same thing: drag the image into the layer with the letters (either still as text or converted to curves) and it just will fill them. But it doesn't. (Which is a good thing, IMO, because it would be incredibly aggravating if you couldn't group an image as part of a layer without it merging itself with other parts of the layer.)
What am I missing here? How do I make this happen?
I managed to make it work, but I'm not sure why. I don't understand why the things I tried that didn't work didn't work, but it did work when it did. Other than that, as far as I can tell, converting it to curves kept it from working. Maybe it has to be a raster layer?
Let us know how you finally made it work.....
I'm not sure what I did. Supposedly you can drag the "fill" layer onto the one you want to fill, as a child layer, and it should just WORK. It wasn't working for me, though -- until it was, and I'm not sure why it was different.
Theoretically, though, you should be able to use any text or any shape (like you make with the shape tool) and just drag an image onto that layer as a child layer.
If you drag the fill layer directly on to the text layer, it wouldn't work (not entirely sure what that does I need to investigate!), you need to drag it underneath it slightly so that it nests inside and becomes clipped to the layer (like clipping masks in PS/PSE) Another way to do it is to be on the layer above, go to Layer > Arrange > Move inside (ctrl + alt + G) and then that would also work like a clipping mask
If you drag one layer onto another it does nest it inside. Kind of like how if you drag a file onto a folder in Windows it puts it IN the folder. You can also just drag it underneath.