Basic Lower Thirds in Adobe Photoshop

by Robin Liss
Published on Jul 2, 2001 12:00 AM



One of the most important graphical elements of any TV show that delivers information, such as a news show is the lower third. The lower third is a graphic, most commonly a title graphic, which is situated on the lower third portion of the screen. The graphic is commonly situated a few inches below the shoulders of the on air personality to give their name, and some info about them. Designing quality lower thirds with a common theme can help improve the quality of your production a lot and they are very easy to do in Adobe Photoshop.

In this project we will be working with Adobe Photoshop version 5.02. You can use the techniques that we use however in almost any version of Photoshop. The first step will be to start a new file. You want to make the file dimensions either 640 x 480 or 720 x 480 depending on what your video project uses. Before we get started you should check to see if your editing software (Newer versions of Primmer and MediaStudio do) supports Adobe Photoshop documents as Images.

We’re going to be using layers in this project. Layers are just that, they layer the images so each part of the picture can be manipulated independently. If you can’t see the layers menu go to the window menu and select show layers. Start out by creating a new layer. The button to do so is on the bottom of the layer window second in from the right (it is next to a trashcan). Click this button and you should create a layer name layer one.

When your designing titles for video you have to make sure that you are in your “safe area”. On most televisions the most top, most bottom, most right and left areas of the screen are not very visible. You want to put graphics there so people with flat screen TV’s don’t see blank but you don’t want to put anything important. It is best to mark off the safe area in any title. You can do this by creating markers. They are blue lines that aren’t a part of your document that serve as guides in Photoshop. To create one, click on the ruler in the window and hold down the cursor. Now drag to the place where you want to put the guide. You should see a blue line. Do this on all four sides of the document, about an inch in on each side.

Lets start creating our lower third. Your layer box should have layer one blue, that means that layer one is the current layer you are editing. If it is not blue click on it. Most lower thirds contain two halves, a top and bottom part. The top part usually includes the name of the person on the screen or a “headline”. The bottom half of the lower third will include details about the person, or their title, or details about the event. The top half of the lower third is much more prominent and usually includes bolder, bigger characters. We’re going to make the most basic lower third in this article. The most basic lower third will just have text, with two different styles and maybe a line separating the two. This was what the old (pre 98?) CNN titles used to look like. Lets try making one. Lets pretend were making a lower third for an interview with George Washington, and the year is 1776. First we need to make the top half. To create text in photoshop you need to click on the tool bar T. If you don’t see a toolbar go to the window menu and show it. Click on the T. You now have the text tool active. Click near the bottom blue line, this is where the text will be placed. You don’t have to be too accurate when placing the text initially because you can easily move it. A text entry box will pop up. Type in George Washington. Change the font to Arial Black (its at the top of the window) and the size to 36. The size option is located right below the font box. To the right of the font box it there should be a pull down menu where you can select italic. Do that now. If you aren’t seeing these changes make sure you have the text highlighted in the window. Then apply the changes again and they should go into effect. Change the color to black. Now hit okay.

We want to delete the background layer because it’s useless to us. If we’re using a new enough video editor it should be able to detect that there is no background and make it very easy for us to superimpose the title. I will discuss an alternative method at the end of this article. Click on the text tool again. We don’t want to have black text but rather white text with a black shadow. This is best if you have no background because your title will work on both bright and dark video. For example, if you only had a white title on a bright background you wouldn’t be able to see it. But by having a shadow you work around that problem. Click on the text tool again, make sure you click away from the first title or else it will make you edit the older one. Create the same text except this time change the color to white. You should barely be able to see the white title now on the checkered background. Drag the white title over the black one. Slightly up and to the left of the first title so you have a shadow. If it seems the white title is behind the black one, go to the layer menu and move it up, on top of the black one. If you are having problems seeing this. Create a new layer, drag it to the way bottom and use the fill tool to make it a colorful background. Now click on one of the two text items. Next to the eye of each layer in the layer menu is a small box, if you click on this box of a title that is not selected it will link that title to the selected title. By linking it when you move the first title you will move the linked title. Your project should now look something like this. Make sure your George Washington is above the bottom blue line about an inch and about a half an inch in from the left

Next we want to create the bottom text. You should pick a color. Because we’re going for that CNN old style I’m going to do it with yellow. I would recommend staying away from red, it bleeds. If you are going to be making a lot of these, make a couple titles with experiment colors and output them to video. Text them on your monitor to see which looks best. Were also going to want to create a shadow for this text because it is not on a solid background. Create a text box like you did with the George Washington title but this time were going to make the font size 20, the color black and not italicize it. You really can make the font any style you like. Type something about George Washington circa 1776. I put Military Leader of the North American Revolutionary Movement. It’s good to make enough room for the bottom halve of your lower third to have two lines. You probably will have to split it into two lines. I recommend trying to put equal text on both lines, but don’t split words in half. There is going to be a big space between the first line of the second half and the second line. To decrease this, select the text in the second line of the second half and increase the base line, I set mine to 60. To save time, before you hit okay on the text box, select all the text and copy it. Now create another text box, with the color that you choose and place it over the first text box to create a shadow.

We’re almost done. If you want to create a separation line, which I would recommend, move your top half of your lower third up a little. Use the line tool in the tool bar which looks like a forward slash and drag the line from the beginning of your text to the end of it. Make sure, before you let go of the cursor to make sure the line is perfectly straight. You will run into big problems if it’s not. Again, I would recommend doing a shadow so first create a black line then a red line or whatever color line you want on top of it. To make your line thick, open the options menu and set the weight somewhere around 5. Also you want to do this in a new layer, not on the text layer.

We’re done! To import this into your project, delete the background and save it as an Adobe Photoshop Document. Newer Video Editing Tools will automatically detect that there is no background and your text will be superimposed. If your editor for some reason does not automatically detect that it is a Photoshop document and does not superimpose the text, you will want to keep your background green, or a color that you are not using in the title. You will have to key out that color in your editor. Also, when you create any element, you want to make sure that anti-aliasing is off. This creates soft, semi transparent borders on all the elements that make everything look very smooth. But if they are on with your green background you will get a semi green border on all your elements.

In the next article on titling we will discuss doing more advanced lower thirds.