Sometimes, a photo needs a little text to really complete the message or the look, but slapping it on without trying to blend it in just makes it look like a terrible watermark. This fun tutorial will show you how to blend text into whatever object you please to make it look realistic.

Coming to you from Aaron Nace at Phlearn, this helpful video tackles the problem of adding text to an object to make it look as if it originated there instead of having been added after the fact. While you might not need to change the title of a book in post all that often, there are many creative possibilities beyond the most obvious uses of the technique: imagine writing messages on any surface you please — even something like grass (or a muffin, as Nace chooses). And even if you don’t see yourself using the technique that often, I do recommend following along and trying it out yourself simply because it stretches a lot of useful Photoshop muscles. In the tutorial, you’ll work with perspective warping, displacement maps, beveling, and light shaping. So, grab any weird object you please, think of a message, and get to work!