Transparent, antialiased text?

[Bond]

Hi everyone. I'd like to create a PNG that I can use as an overlay for other images. I'd like the PNG to have a background but also have some text that's "cut out" so that I can see thru the background to the image I overlay it on.

I started by filling a layer with black. I then tried typing text using a color with 0 opacity in overwrite mode. This works but since blending is off the text is quite jaggy. If I leave blending on (to fix the jaggies) then I obviously can't get transparent text (well, I can, but it's transparent thru to the black, not true image transparency).

So then I tried just using white antialiased text (with normal blending) on a black background and then using the magic wand to delete the white text. That didn't work either. Depending on the tolerance, I either deleted all the text (which left me with jaggies) or I deleted everything but the antialiasing (which remain somewhat white-ish and appear when I overlay it on another image).

Somehow I need to do "reverse" antialias from the background to transparent text. So instead of going from dark text and progressively fading to transparent like on the attached pic, I need to do transparent text and slowly progressing to black so it appears antialiased.

Does anyone know how to do this?

Thanks!
 

(Bonus points if I can keep the text on a separate layer from the black background but it's not necessary! )
 

Edited January 7, 2014 by Bond

[BoltBait]

If you have my plugin pack installed, easy!

Type your text as a black color on a white background and finalize it.

Press Ctrl-A to select the entire layer. Then press Ctrl-C to copy that layer to the clipboard.

Switch to your target layer (where you want the transparent text).

Use the Effects > Object > Paste Alpha menu. Click the "Invert alpha" check box, then click OK.

[Bond]

Thanks so much Bolt! I actually just figured it out using the AlphaMask 2.0 plugin:

 

1. Fill one layer with black.

2. Type black text on another layer.

3. Copy entire text layer.

4. Select black background layer, AlphaMask, Paste from Clipboard (leave Invert off), OK.

 

I'm going to download your plugin pack and give that a try, too. Looks like some neat stuff in there!

 

Thanks again.