Adobe Photoshop Elements 11 Creating Type

Hi, everyone--Mike Brown back with you, with another lesson for you in Adobe Photoshop Elements 11 from Educator.com!0000

In this lesson, we're going to take a look at how you create type.0007

In Photoshop Elements, type is extremely useful for graphics, titling--whatever you want to do that puts type on it--you can do it right here in Photoshop Elements by creating type layers.0010

Right in front of you: this title page was created in Photoshop Elements; we have one graphic element, but we have type layers.0022

That is what these layers are, right here, and in this lesson, I'm going to show you how you create it, manipulate it, and have fun with it.0031

All right, we're going to go over these various features, so let's just get started.0038

We'll come back, and the first three we're going to deal with is the Font family: Font Style, Font Size, and Leading.0042

Let's take a look at an untitled page; you can start by laying your type in either a fixed paragraph (which is adjustable) or just by yourself.0052

The Type tool is over here in the Toolbox, under the Drawing tools at the lower left.0063

Here are your options; the options--standard type is horizontal type; we have vertical type; this is just a type mask; it just makes the selection, and you can fill it with something; this is type on a selection, which you can make, and you can have it follow it around; type on a shape (which is one of these custom shapes); or type on a drawable path--rarely used; we'll talk about basic type today.0069

A font family is the actual look of the letters for this particular collection of alphabet and numbers.0096

If you click on this little dropdown button here, you see: here are all the ones I have in my computer, and right now, we're looking at the Helvetica family.0106

The style of a type family is--in this case, for this particular font--light, light oblique, regular, regular oblique, bold, and bold oblique; we'll leave it at regular.0117

The font size is the physical size of the letter in points, and you have a dropdown menu that you can select preselected ones, or you can simply select and type in your own; let's go with 45, and click Enter, and that would be the type size.0130

You can lay it down one of two ways: click and drag for a specific paragraph (and if I just type in here, you notice, it just stays within that paragraph), and you can resize the paragraph, of course, by first of all accepting the type; and then you grab a corner or grab a side; you can stretch it (you're supposed to be able to stretch it...come on) and adjust the sizing of that paragraph.0147

I don't particularly use paragraphs that much, so we're going to go ahead and delete that; I make my own unless I'm working on a presized page.0179

Let's go back to the Type tool again, and let's just click; and now, it allows me to type.0189

I'm going to type "This is an example of creating text in Photoshop Elements 11." Accept.0197

Now, it looks pretty weird (I'm going to use my Move tool to move it down); that is because the size is 45 points, so let's drop the point size down to about 14, and it's off the page; that's all right; we'll highlight, Move tool...and there we have it!0220

"This is an example of creating text in Photoshop Elements 11."0238

Now, go back to the text tool: first of all, I need to--if you want to get back the text that you want, you can double-click to highlight, or you can take your text cursor and insert it right there--see the line?--that means that it's there, and now I can just go right to here and delete, and come back up, space, click; I have the cursor in place here; I'm going to go and delete one, and hit Return, and it will drop down to another line.0242

So, you can change it by inserting and modifying anything you want.0278

Creating...how about "All types of text"--and I would like to have that come down, insert, delete, drop, insert, delete, move, accept; and now, I have a nice little group of type here.0283

Let's go back to the Type tool, and this is Helvetica; that is the font; I can change my font family by clicking here and going to another choice.0303

It looks the same; let's go to one that I know is different--that is another one, right there; let's go to ArtBrush--that one you will definitely know.0317

Art brush; that is a different font family down here; the other way to do that is to highlight inside the Font Family box--notice the blue line--and just use your up and down arrow keys to scroll either up the alphabet or down the alphabet, and just look at the various examples of font families until you find one that you would like.0325

In this case, I know I want to use Helvetica as an example; we'll go back to Helvetica.0355

But, that is an easy way to do that.0362

Now, font style: notice, it says regular; we'll click here; for this font family, I can have light (notice the thin type); regular; or bold; I also have the option of bold oblique, regular oblique, or light oblique.0364

Let's change this to another font, like Optima; that is a different type font family, and for this particular font family, we have Regular, Italic, Bold, or Extra Black, which is another one.0385

So, different types of styles; some of them have hardly any styles at all; let's take a look at Minion, and for Minion, you only have these four: Condensed, Italic, Bold, and Bold Italic--that is it.0404

So, depending upon the particular family, you will get different amounts of styles.0418

The point size, right here, is the physical size of these letters in points.0426

Right now, it's 14; let's go to 24, and up it comes; I'm going to move that over a little bit, which gives us a perfect example of (maybe I'll make that a little smaller: 24--let's go down to 18)...it fits in...move it over just a little bit; there we go.0433

Now, you see: underneath the point size is what is called leading.0452

Leading comes from the original printers, the monks that created printing and printing presses.0457

They would make the letters in cast lead and put them in a tray, and then, of course, press the paper with ink on those lead letters to make the pages.0462

The separation of the lines of type was with bars of lead; the wider they were, the wider the spacing between the lines.0476

Leading is the spacing between the lines; right now, it's at 22; if we drop it to 14, you notice: there is no space at all, and the text is now overlapping itself.0486

So, we need to come down to probably at least 18; it's still right here on the y's and the l's, so I would say 22 would be a good number.0499

Oops, I used--I do this a lot--that was the font size; 22 for the spacing and 18 for the size; there we have a good look to it.0511

You can do this also, by the way, with the leading: notice, the cursor, when you come up over the word "leading"--it's the scrubby.0525

You can go up or down by simply just clicking and dragging, right or left.0533

All right, let's get that size up there better; there; that is the font families, the font styles, the point size of the type, and the distance between the lines.0542

Color, click, and pick; and that is all you have to do, and the color changes.0557

Now, next to these boxes, you see three alignment options; notice that the type--when I just did this without a paragraph to constrain it--as I come back, it's aligned left; if I just go and delete, or hit the Return button (more type for you) and click Accept, I have it still oriented to the left.0563

This is center orientation: it moved it in the layer (I'll just use the Move tool), and notice: now, it's all along a center line.0594

If I go for the right alignment, now it's on the right edge; left--on that edge; so you have those three options.0603

We'll leave it this way; back to the Type tool; those are your alignment options.0612

Now, if I (I'm going to change this back to black so it's more readable) either double-click on the icon in the type layer--notice, my type is all selected, and these boxes are now accessible.0619

I could have also done this by putting the cursor right next to the first letter--it's flashing--click and drag, and now I have also highlighted my type this way.0634

Oops, I wanted to do that...got away from the Type tool...0647

These boxes are now available; this is what is called faux bold.0653

Faux--F-A-U-X--they are created by the computer, not by the actual font itself.0659

Let's change the font from regular to bold oblique, and let's select it, and now I'll hit the bold, and watch the text: it becomes more bold!0665

Notice, it adds a little more; the computer is adding that artificially; and the italic--notice, it's now more italic.0679

So, you have options of altering the type a little bit beyond the choices on the styles.0685

Underline or strikethrough; we're going to leave those alone, and we'll just click Enter, and there you have that.0692

Now, we have gone through--very quickly--let's take our check marks--the font families (that is the style and shape); and the styles are light, regular, bold, oblique, and things outside the font; size is the size of the letters; leading is the space between the letters; color--obviously; alignment is left, center, and right.0701

Let's talk about orientation and warping of type.0729

Let's go back to that now; now the orientation--the reason that looks a little choppy--I need to get it up to 50% to see it at smooth.0733

Let's actually make this 13, and take the 22 down to about 16, and now we have a nice, clean type look.0743

All right, the orientation: this little button right here--this is horizontal type; it will immediately switch it to vertical type if you wanted that, for whatever reason.0754

Now, the other thing we're going to do: anti-aliasing smoothes the edge nice and clean (let's bring it up); it's not really that jagged; it would be if I take the anti-aliasing off--look at how jagged the edges are.0765

I put it back on; notice: off, on; it tends to smooth almost like a feather, but it's just enough to take the jaggedness out of the edge; there it's off; there it's on; it gives you nice, smooth type.0780

All right, now, if I select this again with the Text tool, I have the option (notice this button here)--it's this arc; I'll click that; you can warp type.0796

We have several styles available; just starting with one, you can arch it (arc or arch--different ones); go like this; horizontal distortion; click OK.0813

Let's move that over; in other words, you can add a really dynamic look to your type by using the Warp function.0825

There you have everything that lies within here, with the exception of one, and here are all of the styles that you can add to your text.0833

They are also over here, under the Styles menu--the same exact thing.0844

The only gain that you get over here is that this little gear allows you to adjust those settings.0851

Let's go over here now, and I'll show you how that works.0857

We're going to take Helvetica; we're going to take it, probably, at a fairly large 48 points; we don't need to worry about the leading--I'm just putting it a single line of type.0861

Click; there it is: "Death Valley, California"; it's a picture in Death Valley; we'll accept that; I think I can go larger on the type size--let's go to 60 points.0874

There we go; actually, let's go to 66; I like that; take the Move tool and move it down over to the left here, just a little bit; let's look at the layer that's on top.0890

Now, we're going to look at the type; the first thing I want to do is warp the type, so we're going to pick (I did this before)...I'm going to pick Flag.0901

It just kind of waves the flag; and I can adjust the amount of bend, more or less; we'll bring it back, just to a subtle one.0913

I kind of like that; that is pretty good; so we have that, and I can change color if I want, but I'm going to leave that alone.0920

I'm going to show you a couple of tricks: I'm going to start with one--if you want to add a texturing, or something of your own that is beyond what is in the available ones that I'm going to show you in Styles, you have this option.0928

I'm going to open on the Desktop, and I'm going to open Parchment; here is a texture that I have of my own, and I'm going to do Command/Control+A to select all, Command/Control on a PC, C, to copy; go back; I'm going to paste it in (Command/Control+V), and there is a new layer.0944

I'm going to do Command/Control+T, for Transform, and I'm going to make that thing larger--larger than the type, and I'm going to accept it and move it up so it covers the type.0967

All right, and now you're wondering, "What in the world are you doing?"0984

We have our type here, which is just basic type at the moment--flat, kind of no character; I would like this type to look like that parchment, and it's so easy.0989

You have a type layer; you put whatever texture or pattern you want in a layer right above it that covers the type--it could be the whole image, for that matter--it could be larger than this.1001

Take your cursor; hold down the Option or Alt key, and move it between the type layer and the texture layer, and watch.1010

You see, it changes to a solid and black circle; so what it's going to do...and click right there, and you see the icon with a little downward-facing arrow; what happened...1019

I'll do this the other way; I'll unclip it and clip it; and what it does is take the layer above and fit it into the layer below, which, in this case, happens to be a text layer.1032

Now, you see that Death Valley (let's even make that a little bit larger--let's go with 70 points--oops, I'm on the wrong type layer--my fault--70 points; it should pop up; let's go with 75; there we go)...1045

Now, you see that it's sticking out to the right, so what we're going to do is take this layer with a Move tool and just move it over.1065

You see the boxes moving over; so it's behind or over the entire wording.1072

We're good; oops, I went too far; there we go.1079

Now, we have added that; we have other options that we can do, as well.1082

Let's go back here, and let's add some styles.1088

We're going to do this through the Effects menu styles, rather than in the Type styles.1094

Same thing--it just has a better control over here.1100

We have Bevels; let's start with beveling the actual type; here is the Options; Standard Round Bevel--I'll double-click that, and look--now the type is three-dimensional.1103

If we click on this gear to the right of Bevels, which you don't see over here (you don't have that option)--we click on that, and now we have options for the bevel.1114

We can change the size; a little bit there changes it--bring it down; a little flat; right there seems very good.1126

We're OK; we'll take that; now, let's go with a drop shadow, and Standard Drop Shadow seems to be the one here--we'll double-click that, and there is a drop shadow.1134

Hit the gear, and we can adjust that, as well; I can make the size a little softer, move the distance out, change the lighting angle--any light angle that you want--and we can also change the opacity so it gets a little lighter.1146

There we go; this size is a little too soft; let's move it over there--I like it like that.1163

Now, you have added more dimension to it (up the size just a little bit here); there--now, we have three-dimensional type with a drop shadow.1172

Now, there are so many other things you can do; let's go back to the Layers, and what you see is: every time we did one of those, notice the little Effects button.1183

If I double-click, there is our style.1192

I'm going to take and unclip this top layer (and it's gone), and turn it off, and now we have it--it's the red type.1196

Let's go down into the type layer and do the effects from here; and let's take a look at patterns.1206

We have all of these options for patterns; it's a lot easier to see them if we go to the Effects menu and go to Patterns here; they're larger, and you see them all laid out.1219

How about a brick wall pattern?1232

There, we put that in; if we don't like that, let's go with this one instead; and that is kind of interesting; how about a stroke around the letters; we'll just do a simple stroke right there.1236

Then, we'll hit the gear, and the stroke is 10 pixels; let's take it down to about 6; that looks pretty good.1254

Click OK; you have all sorts of options; let's just see--we'll put them all out here in front of us: let's see what we have.1264

Let's try one more...oh, I want to see what this looks like; let's double-click that one; I don't like that, so let's go back and look at our layers and what effect we just put in there that I didn't like.1273

Glow, cancel; we're going to have to take that one away right there.1286

OK, so there you have all sorts of options for making it; let's go back--one more thing I want to do is change the bevel up a little bit; there we go.1293

Wow, that looks pretty cool.1305

All right, so there we have several ways to work with type.1306

Let's go back; orientation and warping to change the look and the way the type lays out, like that; we also have clipping a photo texture or pattern---you can do that with a photo texture or pattern to the object; that is what we were doing here before--Option/Alt, click between, and you get that on there.1311

Finally, adding a layer style to the text; now, once the layer style is on, all you have to do is double-click the Effects button, and--if you wanted to turn off the bevel, just undo it; turn off the stroke; turn off the drop shadow; and so on and so forth.1334

There you have how to work with text and create type in Adobe Photoshop Elements 11!1354