#3 Exploring Adobe Photoshop CS3: Play with Text

We can start by having a cartoon of a reindeer and a sheep peeping out of a gift box.

Next comes the text. Here's a little tip, once you typed in your text and you want some adjustments to the size, hold down the CTRL key and move the points of the text box to your liking. Holiding down the SHIFT key while doing so will retain the text in its proper proportion.

Now let's add some style to the text. Before typing anything, we can create a path for the text to follow. Select the PEN TOOL and make sure it has the PATHS type selected (found at the tool bar), this will allow us to have a path for the text to follow.

Let's say we want the text to follow the drawings. Using the PEN TOOL, create a line following the desired path. Once done, select the HORIZONTAL TYPE tool and click at the line you've made. Now make sure before you click anywhere that the mouse pointer turns into the I symbol with a slanting line acroos it.

You can now type away. Now in case the letters get too crammed together, you may need to make some adjustaments. The text size may be too large or too small. From the WINDOW menu, select PARAGRAPH and a window pops up. Select the CHARACTER TAB and you will see its properties. Here is a little trick: you may highlight only a portion of the text you typed and adjust the size or the spacing of the characters between one another.

To add more effects, on the tool bar, you can select the CREATE WARPED TEXT and further adjust the property sliders to your needs. In addition, you may also double click on the text layer to bring out the LAYER STYLE window. Here you can select different styles and adjust them to your liking.

So here, we finish our card with some color and background.

Happy Holidays!!