If you wanted to put text into your image back in the early days of Photoshop, you might as well be carving your words into a big hunk of marble. Spelling definitely counted back then, because you were more or less permanently embedding your words into the image. The introduction of layers in Version 3 loosened things up a bit, but until fairly recently creating type in Photoshop was a restrictive process.
Then Photoshop 5 came along and gave us something new and welcome — editable bitmapped type. Long after you created a line of text, you had the option of changing the words, typeface, size, leading, kerning, and so on. In only one upgrade cycle, Photoshop made a quantum leap from grim Stone Age letter wrangling to something that might actually pass for contemporary typesetting. Photoshop 5.5 expanded the type possibilities further, but with Version 6, type finally evolved from a single-celled organism to something resembling homo sapiens. At last you could:
Scale text as large as you wanted without any repercussions, just as you could with any vector object. That's because the type tool actually created vector text.
Create and edit text by typing directly on the image canvas — no more side trips to the Type Tool dialog box required.
Create text inside a frame and then apply paragraph formatting to control hyphenation, justification, indents, alignment, and paragraph spacing. You could even create lists that use hanging punctuation and control word and character spacing in justified text, as you can in Adobe PageMaker and InDesign.
Make per-character adjustments to color, width, height, spacing, and baseline shift.
Bend, twist, and otherwise distort text using a simple Warp Text dialog box instead of wrestling with the Wave filter or other distortion filters.
Convert characters to shapes that you could then edit, fill, and stroke just as you do objects you create with the shape tools (explored in Chapter 14). Alternatively, you could convert text to a work path.
Rasterize text so that you could apply any filters or tools applicable to ordinary image layers.
Photoshop 7 introduced a few useful type features, such as the type mask tools and the Check Spelling command, but you still couldn't put type on a drawn path, a feature by now standard to most illustration and layout programs. The closest Photoshop got was the Warp Text command, which is nice but fairly limited.
| Photoshop |
With the arrival of Photoshop CS, that limitation has disappeared. In addition to supporting text on a path, Photoshop can also create and modify text around and even inside shape layers and paths. Finally, Photoshop's text features are fully in line with those found in page-layout, illustration, and even advanced word-processing programs. You should be able to make them a regular part of your text routine in no time. |
| Note |
I don't cover the options for formatting Chinese, Korean, and Japanese text, which become available when you select the Show Asian Text Options check box on the General panel of the Preferences dialog box. Like the rest of Photoshop's type controls, these options should be familiar to you if you work regularly with type in these languages. But if you're not sure what each control does, check the Photoshop online help system for details. |
As I mentioned a few paragraphs ago, the type tool produces vector type. But you also can create a text-based selection outline or work path, convert each character to a separate vector object, or create a bitmap version of your text. Here's a rundown of your type choices:
To create regular text, select the type tool (also known as the horizontal type tool), click in the image window, and type away. Or, to create paragraph text, drag to create a text frame and then type your text in the frame. You then can choose from a smorgasbord of type-formatting options, apply layer effects, and more. There are a few things you can't do, such as apply the commands in the Filter menu or use the standard selection tools. But as for that last one, there's no need to use the selection tools anyway — you can select characters simply by dragging over them, as you do in a word processor.
To produce a text-based selection outline, select the horizontal or vertical type mask tool from the type tool flyout menu (see the upcoming Figure 15-5) and create your text. Photoshop covers your image with a translucent overlay, as when you work in the quick mask mode, and your text appears transparent. You can apply all the same formatting options that are available when you work with ordinary text. When you commit the text, the overlay disappears and your selection outline appears.
| Tip |
You can also create type masks using the regular old type tool. Simply enter and format your text as usual. Then Ctrl-click (z -click on the Mac) on the type layer in the Layers palette to generate the selection outlines. What's the advantage of this approach? Simple — type on a layer is forever editable; a type mask is not. So if you ask me, there's really no reason to ever use the type mask tools. |
After creating text, choose Layer Type Convert to Shape to turn each character into an individual vector shape that works just like those you create with the shape tools (covered in Chapter 14). You then can edit the shape of individual characters, an option explored in "Editing text as shapes," later in this chapter.
Choose Layer Type Create Work Path to generate a work path from text. One reason to use this option is to create a clipping path based on your text.
Finally, you can convert text to bitmapped type by choosing Layer Rasterize Type. After rasterizing the text, you can apply Photoshop's filters and other pixel-based features to it.
| Caution |
After you rasterize text or convert it to a shape or work path, you can't go back and run the spelling checker or change the text formatting as you can while working with vector text or type masks. So be sure that you're happy with those aspects of your text before you convert it. You may even want to save a copy of the vector text in a new layer so that you can get it back if needed. |
| Caution |
Also note that when you save images in the PSD, PDF, or TIFF format, you must select the Include Vector Data option to retain the vector properties of your text. If you turn off the check box or save in a format that doesn't support vectors, Photoshop rasterizes your text. Again, saving a backup copy of the image in the native Photoshop format is a good idea. |
Before I get into the nitty-gritty of creating text, I want to share a few ideas to inspire you to see text for the creative playground that it can be. Combine the powers of the type tool with the program's effects, filters, paint and edit tools, and layering features, and you can create an almost unlimited array of text effects to enhance your images — even produce text that stands alone as a powerful image in its own right.
With that flowery speech out of the way, allow me to provide some examples of the kinds of things you can do with your text:
Create translucent type. Because Photoshop automatically creates type on a new layer, you can change the translucency of type simply by adjusting the Opacity value for the type layer in the Layers palette. Using this technique, you can merge type and images to create subtle overlay effects, as illustrated in Figure 15-1.
Figure 15-1: After creating some white type layered against a vintage photo, I lowered the type opacity to 70 percent. Although child's play in Photoshop, this effect is difficult to create in many other programs.
Use type as a selection. By creating a type mask, you can use type to select a portion of an image, and then move, copy, or transform it. To create Figure 15-2, for example, I used my text to select the vintage photo. Then I dragged it into a different stock photo background and applied the Multiply blend mode from the Layers palette. You'd be hard-pressed to tell that there's a parade inside those letters, but it serves as an interesting texture.
Figure 15-2: Photoshop is virtually unique in permitting you to select an image using type. Here I selected the image from Figure 15-1 and dragged the selection into a different background.
Apply layer effects. Photoshop's layer effects are fully applicable to type. In Chapter 11). Then I applied a pillow emboss effect to the text layer using Layer Layer Style Bevel and Emboss.
Figure 15-3: I used the Bevel and Emboss layer effect to apply a pillow emboss effect.
Edit type as part of the image. After rasterizing text (by choosing Layer Rasterize Type), you can paint type, erase it, smear it, apply a filter or two, or do anything else that you can do to pixels. In Figure 15-4, I embossed the type, flattened it against its background, applied a few effects filters, and made it sway with the Wave filter.
Figure 15-4: This image is the result of going nuts for 15 minutes or so using the commands in the Filter menu. I used Emboss, Radial Blur, Colored Pencil, Craquelure, and Wave.