How To Make A Word Cloud In Photoshop

Today I am going to show you how to create a neat graphical effect called a,”Word Cloud”. You see this effect with words all the time in magazines, newspapers, billboards, and sometimes in video. First off I want to say I learned how to do this effect from a very sharp young man named Matt Kloskowski, over at NAPP. So, as much as I’d like to take all the credit, I really can’t. If you aren’t a Napp member you might want to consider it, it’s only $99 a year and you get that awesome free shipping perk from B&H. A side note, my NAPP membership paid for itself the first time I bought a nine foot roll of seamless paper and got free shipping, shhh. But really the Napp people are great, so on with the program…

The first thing you will need to create a word cloud is a set of words. It can be anything, however you might want to try to use a set of words that pertain to an image that will be used as part of the graphic. I just listed a bunch of photography related terms in notepad, then copied and pasted them in to a neat little online app called, “Wordle”. The Wordle app, does all of the heavy lifting so to speak. It generates the actual word cloud but you get to customize it the way you like. A tip to remember, the size of the words in the final word cloud are based on the quantity of a specific word in the group of words you paste in. The more of a single word, the larger that word will appear in the final word cloud. Note the word Photographer is the largest word in my cloud.

The only thing left to do after you generate the word cloud in wordle, is to take it in to Photoshop and create a clipping mask. Spend a few minutes (three in fact) watching my video, I will walk you though the process from start to finish. A word cloud is a simple effect that looks very complex, and you never know when you might need this kind of graphic. I hope you all have a wonderful day. Sincerely, Thomas Shue