Tip for 10/25 - Odd-Shaped Text boxes

[angedawn]

Over the weekend, my friend Emily and I had a little time to "talk digital scrapbooking". :) And, it wasn't all that many months ago that I taught Emily the basics of the whole Photoshop system... and now Emily is teaching me new things I never knew! (Hows that for humbling! lol!)

Anyway... I thought I would pass on these AWESOME directions for creating "odd shaped" text boxes. These directions are for CS2 - but will likely work for earlier versions, maybe with some modifications.

Here is a sample page I made with this technique...

Sample Page (http://www.scrapartist.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=2619&cat=500&ppuser=8)

The first thing we need to do is to make a selection that is the size we would like the "odd-shaped" text box to be. Do this using your selection tools... perhaps starting out with a rectangular selection... and then subtracting out the parts that you don't want in. In my examlple... I started with a rectangular selection... and then subtracted out part of the box using the Elliptical Marquee Tool.

Now we want to turn this selection into a path. If you click "Window" and then "Paths" from the drop down menu... the paths palette will come up. You want to choose the third option from the right... the one that says "Make Work Path from Selection". Click it... and the selection will now become a path.

Now click on the text tool. When you brigh the cursor over this area... the cursor will change the way it looks... instead of having two vertical lines on either side of it... it will now have two rounded semi circles on either side of it. (It almost looks like parens around it).

Now start typing. Your text will adjust itself to the new shape and it will act just like a regular text box.

Here's a hint... on my sample.. the first time I did this... I just followed the piece of pattern paper... but when I put my text in ... it was WAY too close to that pattern paper... I needed to go out and redefine that box again... and make it not so close to the pattern paper... Make sense?

OK - Hope that this is new to you! Thanks to my friend Emily for teaching me cool new things... lol! Have a great Halloween, and if you get a chance to use this new tool... I would love to see the pages you create with it. Please link them here! :)

[scraprascal]

I love this trick! One thing you can do to make the text box uniformly inside your paper margins is this-When you're still in the marching ant stage, go to Select>Modify>Contract and enter a pixel width, probably around 15-30 and your selection will shrink for you! Thanks for sharing such a valuable tip, I think everyone should know this one!!!

[jomi]

Thanks so much for this trick!! I was wondering how to do this and going to give this a try later today!

thanks!!:)

[angleigh]

thanks for the tip i'll have to try it out

[DianneRigdon]

Isn't that fun? Imagine the possibilities! Like, a butterfly shaped journal section lol. Keep in mind that the preset shapes can also be made into paths. This would make a really fun challenge. Great Ange!

[NishaM]

Seems to be a great idea, Just wondering if this works in PS 7 ???
Nisha

[CindyS]

I just attempted this in PS7 using the exact instructions above, but I was not able to get it to work. I believe I've heard that text on a path is one of the advantages CS has over the earlier versions, so this may not work in 7 or below. There may be another way, other than the "fake it" method I like to employ. (LOL) Maybe someone smart can come in here and tell us how. ;)