Types of text

What you should know is that when you add text to an image, it is always placed in its own “text layer”. In contrast to the “photo layers”, which are based on pixels, text layers are based on vector graphics. This has several advantages.

A first advantage is that the edges of text will be purer for printing, a second advantage is that more layers of text editing.

What you should also know is that, there are three types of text. They are point text, paragraph text and path text.
“Point text” is horizontal or vertical line of text that begins at the point where you click in a picture. This use this when we when one or a few words to add to our picture.
“Paragraph Text”, we use when we want to type one or more paragraphs of text.
“Path type text”, we use when want the entered text to run along a path.

Point Text

Let me first start with the point type.

To add point text to an image, select the tool “Horizontal text” in the tool bar (2) and you click on the image.

This automatically adds a text layer to the “Layers” panel and inserts a blinking cursor in the picture. The text you type is automatically underlined. This does not mean the text is underlined, this only indicates that the text box is active.

If you want to start a new line in point text, click the Enter key on your keyboard.

A text layer is always accompanied by an icon with the letter T (1).

The only thing you have to do is type text (3).

As soon as you typed, you confirm by pressing the “Commit any edits” button (4) or click the Enter key on your keyboard, or any choose any other tool to get the typed text, or at least part of , as the name of the text layer (5).

When the text tool is selected, we have some options in the options bar (6). The same options, plus a few others, also found in the “Character” panel (7).

Let me first discuss the various options.

The first button determines the direction of the text, horizontal or vertical.

To the left, we find the font. Clicking on the downward pointing arrow indicates a drop-down list of all installed fonts on your computer. Click the font you want.

To its right we have the “Font Style” box. The options, eg bold, italics, etc., in this section depend on the chosen font.

Next box is the “Text size” box. In this section we determine the size of the letters. You have the option to choose one from the drop-down list, or you have the ability to type in a value.

In addition we have the “Anti-aliasing” box. Here we determine how “soft” the edge of the text we want.

• None: There is no anti-aliasing
• Sharp: The text is displayed as sharp as possible
• Crisp: The text is in a very sharp display
• Strong: The text is displayed quite heavy
• Smooth: The text is displayed smoother

Then we have three icons that change the alignment of the text. This seems obvious to me.
In addition we have the color picker. Clicking this button opens a dialog where we set the color.
And finally we have the buttons “Create Warped text” and “Toggle the Character and Paragraph panels”.

Clicking the “Warp” button opens the dialog “Warped text,” where we find a number of preset styles on which we can rotate our text.

Plus a few other options with which we can adjust the distortion. If you find anything like, choose in the “Style” or choose “None” and your text is placed back into its original form.

Clicking on “Toggle the Character and Paragraph panels” opens or closes the panels “Character” and “Paragraph”- which is a good idea when working with texts.

When an image prevents to store text layers, choose an extension that supports layers, for example “.Psd”. This way you will always have the possibility to change your text layers.

If you just save it as jpg for example, which does not support layers, all layers will be merged and you can not change the text layers later.

Edit Text

While the text is on a text layer, we can edit the text.
The first thing you do when you want to edit text is, select the text layer where the text is located. Then select the text tool in the toolbar.

If you want to edit all the text in the text layer, you do nothing else to select.

If you want to choose a different font, you will see that the font will adapt to all the text in the text layer. Same for all other options in the options bar.

Tips!

When you click in the font box in the options bar, so that the text with the font is blue colored and you click the upward or downward pointing arrow keys on your keyboard, then the text will automatically adjust on the image.

I think this is the best way to choose a font.

The same can be done with the “Text Style” box.

For the text size, it is slightly more complicated.  For this you must first select all text in the text layer.

You do this by using the Text tool, click and drag to select the existing text.

Once the text is selected you can click in the text size box and adjust the size by using the arrow keys.

When the text is selected, it is provided with a white background, as you can see in the image above (A).

To remove this background, click Ctrl + H on your keyboard (B).

Then place your cursor over the “T” in the options bar and when it changes into a hand with two arrows, you press it to move to left or right (3).

This way you get a clearer picture of the changes of your text.

If you want to change only a few letters and not the whole text, select only those you want to change.

If your changes for the text are ready, click the Enter key on your keyboard.

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