Sunday School: Creating Text Paths

Today for Sunday School I am going to carry on with our creative journaling topic and teach you how to make text paths in photoshop. I know that PSE users can not make these themselves so I have included a little freebie for you at the end of this post.

How to create a text path

Note: I have created a document 3600x3600 to work on for this tutorial but you can just as easily do all these steps directly onto your layout.  There is no need to create a new document just for creating your text paths.

1. Select the shape tool.

2. Choose the shape that you want your text path to be either a regular shape or if you want something a little more fancy go to your custom shape tool. Then draw your shape on your document. I have chosen a heart.

3. Right click on the shape in the layer window and select - Rasterize Layer.

4. Right click again and this time choose - Select Pixels. You will see the marching ants appear around the outline of your shape.

5. Now go to your Paths window and at the bottom click the - Make Work Path from Selection icon (see below)

6. The marching ants will disappear and a solid line will appear around your shape, it is hard to see but it will be there I promise! Now select your Text tool, put the cursor near the edge of your shape where you want to start writing. You will see the cursor change from just an I to an I with a ~ through it. 

7. Once you have clicked you will see a text layer appear in your layer window. You can now start typing and you will see that your words will follow the edge of your shape. You can treat this text as regular text, change the size, style, colour etc. 

8. You can now delete your shape layer and just your text path will remain.

Tip

You can use the shapes in Andrea's templates to create your own text paths. If you want to write around the edge of a photo or a paper mat just treat that part of the template as your shape. Make sure the photo mat for instance is selected in your layer window and then right click on that layer to Select Pixels and then continue as outlined in the tutorial above.

Now I promised you all a little freebie and here it is, 4 text paths for use in photoshop or photoshop elements. Enjoy adding these to your layouts. 

Download here

I will be back next week with another journalling tutorial and another freebie.  Don't forget to let me know here what other tutorials you would like to see covered.  

Also don't forget to link Kim up with your Little Green Frog Designs layouts here and you might see your page featured in our gallery standouts. There is also only 1 week left to enter Andrea's fantastic blog challenge enter for the chance to win a guest CT spot!!

Have a great week.