How does (clipping) mask in Photoshop work in my specific case

Question

This is my basic layer setup:

• Textlayer
• Shape
• Background

I want to mask the shape-layer so the parts where the text in the shape is transparent.

Rasterizing the shape and deleting the text-part is not an option. Setting the color of the text to red is also not an option, because the background can be a picture.

I just can't figure out how to do this. All tutorials for masks have different goals than mine. How can I do this?

Answer 1

The answer is very simple, but obscure. As it happens, it doesn't involve clipping masks. :)

Set the text over the shape. Open the text layer Blending Options dialog and set "Fill" to 0 percent, then change the Knockout dropdown to "Deep," which knocks out everything through to the background. This is one of those almost-never-used Photoshop features that comes in handy on the rare occasion that you need it.

Answer 2

You would have to work with Photoshop CS6 I think, I mean there are some new options but I'm not sure how new they are, maybe they've been there for a while and I did not know about them.

Here's how you do it:

1. Create your text
2. Right click on the text layer in the layers panel > go to > Convert to Shape.
3. Draw your shape(that black shape in your screenshot, but when drawn use the "Path Operations" Option, and set it to "Exclude overlapping shapes"

Here's a screenshots that might help, you can see both the result and the option I talk about in (3), but as I said I'm not sure it was available before CS6: