Cutout Effects with Eye Candy

We've had a couple of users ask how to create cutout effects with Eye Candy. By cutout, they mean that it looks like there is a hole in the image.

I'll start with this image of a red sports car. This is what will appear behind the cutout hole. I will leave this as the background layer.

Now let's create the surface that the hole is cut in. I'm going to just use a solid white layer above the background. Let's make the hole be in the shape of a word. Here I used Photoshop's Type Mask Tool.

Let's cut the hole by hitting the Backspace key. We no longer need the selection, so drop it with Control+D on Windows or Command+D on Mac. Now you can see the background layer through the hole, but it doesn't look physically realistic yet because there is no shadow.

Let's make the shadow inside the hole. Start Eye Candy's Perspective Shadow filter. In the menus, that is Filter > Eye Candy 6: Text & Selection > Perspective Shadow.

Choose one of the drop shadow presets. In the Factory Settings list they are in the Drop folder. Hit the Enter key or OK button and the hole looks more realistic.

Because we kept the background and top surfaces on separate layers, we have the freedom to make adjustments. I think that the car is pointing the wrong way. So I'll flip that layer horizontally. And the details of the photo are distracting. So I'll make that layer 50% opacity.