A Hand Lettered Holiday: Lettering on Photos.  Adding whimsical hand-lettering to styled photographs: A tutorial and free printable!

A Hand Lettered Holiday: Lettering on Photos

I’ve teamed up with some of my favorite of blogging friends to bring you 11 Holiday Themed Hand Lettering Projects. Each blogger has created an awesome holiday themed free hand lettering worksheet, hand lettering tutorial, or hand-lettered printable to share with you!

You can find my tutorial below and links to all 10 additional tutorials at the end of this post.

Happy lettering friends and we hope you love this Hand Lettered Holiday blog hop!

Lettering on Photos

Lettering on photos is just one of my m0st recent hand lettering obsessions. It creates a fun, whimsical look and it’s a lot easier to do than it may appear.

Here’s a peek at a few I’ve done recently. The possibilities are endless.

While many of these were created using stock photos I’ve purchased, today, I’m going to show you how to create your own from scratch.

Step One: Create and Take a Styled Photograph

To do this, I gathered a piece of white foam core board, some props (tags, ornaments, gift bows). I took everything outside on a cloudy day to shoot my photograph. Natural light does wonders for your photography (even if I froze my booty off out there!).

I shoot on a Canon Rebel T3i DSLR in manual mode. My camera settings for this photo were: 1/80s, f/4.5, ISO 200. You can also just use your phone to take and edit the photo. The goal is to create something nice and bright with room for lettering.

Step Two: Editing the Photo

Now, we want to size the photo to fit the project. For Instagram, I’d create a square photo to letter on. For this project, I want it to be a downloadable printable, so I edited the photo to be 8×10 inches. I’m using Photoshop but you can use any photo editing program you like.

If your photo wasn’t bright enough, you’ll also want to brighten your photo in your editing program. I intentionally over-exposed mine just a bit with my camera, so it wasn’t needed for this photo.

Save a hi-res version of the photo to your computer desktop. This is the image we’re doing to letter on!

Step Three: Options for Lettering on the Photo

Now, you have two main options:

• You can print out your photo and letter right on it.
• You can add lettering digitally.

I typically use my iPad Pro + Apple Pencil to create these so that’s what I’m going to show you, but you can apply the same concept to lettering on a paper version of the image with markers. If you’re new to lettering on the iPad Pro you can read my tutorial on how to it here.

Step Four: Adding lettering with the iPad

• Transfer the photo to your iPad. (You can email it to yourself, or use Dropbox or Airdrop. I use Airdrop because it’s so quick!)
• Open the Procreate App on your iPad.
• In the top right-hand corner, click the + sign and select “import”. Then select the styled photo you made. (Or you can download the one I created for this post below).
• In the layers panel, add a new layer. This is the layer you will letter on.
• Because the style of lettering on photos is doodled and whimsical, I don’t go in with a plan. This is one of the only times I letter without a plan! I just start lettering about the objects, using a variety of brushes and styles. If you don’t like something, just erase it and try again!
• Fill in any blank or unbalanced spaces with doodles like circles, stars, dots, flourishes, etc.
• When you’re done, export and use your fun now photo however you desire!

Lettering on Styled Photos Freebies

You can download the resources from this post below:

Freebies are ©2016 Dawn Nicole Designs LLC. You may use them for personal use only. Gifting is ok. The images may not be sold in any form.

• “Blank” Styled Holiday Photo (add your own lettering to the photo)
• Worksheet with Traceable Lettering (trace my lettering on the photo)
• Free Printable Photo with Lettering (just print and pop it in a frame!)

A Hand Lettered Holiday Blog Hop

I hope you enjoyed this A Hand Lettered Holiday: Lettering on Photos tutorial. Don’t forget to pop over and check out all the other awesome hand lettering tutorials and worksheets from my blogging friends!

1. Holiday Montage: How to Do Doodle Lettering on Photos by Dawn Nicole Designs
2. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas Practice Sheets by Printable Crush
3. Noel Practice Sheets by Lemon Thistle
4. O Come Let us Adore Him Lettering Tutorial by One Artsy Mama
5. Happy Holidays Brush Lettering Worksheet by Brittany Luiz
6. Joy to the World Printable + Practice Sheet by Liz on Call
7. Be Merry & Eats Lots of Cake Brush Lettering Worksheet by Random Olive
8. ‘Tis the time to be Jolly Lettering Tutorial by Inkstruck Studio
9. All is Calm, All is Bright Snowglobe Lettering Tutorial by Here Comes the Sun
10. Gift Tag Printables by Persia Lou
11. Comfort and Joy Printable by Kleinworth & Co.

Happy creating!

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