Text, Shapes, and Special Effects
So far we've been working purely with raster images and layers. This week we're going to look at PSE's vector tools: the Type tools and the Shape tools.
Adding Text to Your Images
Adding text to your images is not only useful, but fun. You can create posters and greeting cards, add a title or copyright notice to your photos, make your own buttons for Web pages - There are just so many things you can do with text.
You add text to your images in PSE using the Type tools (Shortcut key T)
The Horizontal Type tool and the Vertical Type tool are vector tools. Text that you enter with these tools can be edited at any time, even after you save your image, as long as you save in PSD format. Because the text is entered as a vector object rather than as pixels, you can also resize, deform, or warp the text without affecting the image quality of the text.
To add text to an image, choose Horizontal Type or Vertical Type and choose settings on the Options bar:
First choose the font name (for example, Helvetica or Times New Roman), the font size, and a color.
Font Size
There are only a limited number of sizes available in the Type tools' Option bar font size drop-list. But you're not limited to the listed sizes. If you want a size that isn't listed, simply type it in the text box in which the font size is displayed.
Font Name
You can "jump" to a font name rather than scrolling through the list. Here's how:
- Select the Type tool
- On the Options bar:
- Click on whatever font name is currently there
- On the keyboard, press the first letter of the name of the font you want to jump to.
- Press more letters to move to next font:
{eg: t takes me to Tahoma
te takes me to Technical
tel takes me to Teletype}
- Use Backspace to move back to beginning of list
- Use up/down keyboard arrow keys to scroll through list or use arrow for drop down list.
Align Text
To enter text, click on the image canvas with a Type tool. Where you click defines the position of the "bottom" of the characters in the text string (the baseline).
With the Horizontal Type tool, there are three choices for alignment: Left, Center, and Right. If the alignment is set to Left, the point where you click is the left edge of the text string. If alignment is set to Center, the inserted text is centered around the point of the click.
If the alignment is set to Right, the point where you click is the right edge of the inserted text string.
With the Vertical Type tool, the alignment choices are Top, Center, and Bottom.
Continued...
