Fonts

[Jamie Hamblin]

Can we talk about the lettering that we learned in the last sandy class? I'm still having trouble with it... I can't find your page April... but it's white and both Luke and Megan are on it. I think that they are in front of your house door.

[Quinn]

Do you mean making it possible to add stroke around the letters?

[Jamie Hamblin]

Exactly! Thanks Quinn

[Angie]

You can stroke anything...letters, pictures, graphics, etc. In Elements you go to "Edit>Stroke (Outline)". Does that help? One tip is to make sure your color is choosen before you go to the "Edit>Stroke".

[Jenny McDonald]

What does this do? I've heard alot about it but have no idea what it does.

[Quinn]

Well, I always hit a few different buttons when I want to do it because I can never remember exactly what key does it. I try "control" then select the text layer, "command" then select the text layer, "alt" select the layer, & "shift" select the layer. Which one is the right one?

[Jenny McDonald]

Angie, do you use Elements?

[Angie]

Stroking or Outlining will make a perfect border around your letters or pictures.

[Quinn]

Angie's right, but selecting exactly around the outline of the text is the trick.

[peverill]

Sometimes I have to go to layer, then go to layer style and add a stroke there. I don't know why but sometimes it won't let me add it in the edit mode.

[April]

I'm pretty sure I started a thread on that. Who can find it? This is the layout she is talking about. You can only do this in the full versions of PS.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v473/oakapr/bestfriends.jpg

[Jamie Hamblin]

But then how do you make it outline? I mean its all filled in... i can see where it did the outline but... i can't get rid of the middle

[Angie]

Okay I am sorry for my post above. What I said works on pictures or graphics but I just tried to do it on text and it doesn't work. Oops...sorry for the confusion. And yes...I am using elements.

[Quinn]

Sorry, my explanations are soooo confusing.. even to me! If you want to select around the text outline, you have to hit "alt," "ctrl," "command," or "shift" and then select the text layer. Then, once that's selected, you go to edit-stroke outline

[April]

In the class I talked about simply outlining a font with a solid color. I'll come back and help you learn how to do that soon.

Oh dear. I just hear my babysitter or my kids break something glass. Good thing we are almost done here.

[Jenny McDonald]

Is the paper and elements from the Playground CD?

[jessie97]

I double click on the layer and choose stroke the then change the color and size. Hit okay and then change the fill to 0. Fill is right underneath opacity

[Quinn]

If you select around the text and make a new layer, then you can select stroke outline and it will only be on that layer. Then you can delete the text layer and only the outline will show. April's referring to paths and you can't do paths in Elements.

[April]

Is the paper and elements from the Playground CD? No the moods CD. The dotted lines are not in a yet.

[April]

Here is how I would do it.

Type your text
Press control and click on the text layer at the same time. This will select the outline of your text.
Create a new layer.
Stroke that new layer. Edit>stroke.
Now hide the text layer and deselect the selection (marching ant looking thing) and you should be done.

If you want it to have the dotted line effect like in the layout I have above you could use a thin eraser to erase inbetween everywhere. If that takes too long be creative and just scribble your eraser all over the place so that you get some sort of new funky effect. Make sure you are on the right layer as always.

[Jenny McDonald]

I did everything that you said but I can't find the marching ant thing. I'm in Elements if that helps. I don't know if I did it right, because now the next has these moving lines in it. Can you let me know if I did it right?

[April]

Yes. I think you did it right. You are calling it moving lines and I call it marching ants because that's what it looks like to me.

When I'm talking about the "marching ants" I'm talking about any of the selection tools (the marquees, lassos, magic wand).

In this case I tell you to press control and click on the text layer at the same time. This will select the outline of your text which should give you the marching ants. If it doesn't try again and press somewhere else on the text layer in the layers palette. It will work. Then you can follow the rest of the steps I mentioned above.

Let me know if I need to clarify.

[Liz]

Yeah! I did it...I love reading all of your posts and seeing if I can figure this out.

[Alyson]

BTW, here's the link to the previous thread talking about paths around a font (like April's page above).

http://http://forum.digitalscrapbookmemories.com/showthread.php?t=1019

[Jenny McDonald]

Okay, I must be slow or something! I followed the instructions again and when I deselected the text/stroke layer I still have the marching ants. Is this normal or did I do something wrong? Will I always have the marching ants?

[April]

When I say deselect the section I mean for you to get rid of the marching ants. You can do this a few ways including pressing select then deselect. Does this make sence now?

[Jenny McDonald]

I think so I'll try it and see if it works.