Photoshop® CS3 Bible

Chapter 16. Fully Editable Text

IN THIS CHAPTER

A brief, but compelling history of text in Photoshop

Creating vector type

Producing text-based selection outlines

Rasterizing text

Adding type directly to an image

Creating vertical columns of type

Entering text in a bounding box

Selecting and editing existing text

Formatting text using the Character and Paragraph palettes

Using the Check Spelling and Find and Replace Text commands

Creating text on a path

Warping text layers

Converting text to editable shapes

All things considered, Photoshop's handling of type has come a long way. The journey has taken us from a Type tool that was about as forgiving and friendly as trying to write with a broken pencil while riding in an old truck on a bumpy road to the very efficient, useful, and powerful tool we have today. If you weren't there for those bumpy rides, consider yourself lucky.

The lack of layers before version 3 was the biggest problem; after you typed the text, it was part of your image, no editing, no taking it back or saying, "Hey, how does it look without the type?" There also was no spell-check, so if you weren't a spelling bee champion or the most accurate typist, it was very frustrating. To say the least.

With the release of version 5 came something new and welcome — editable bitmapped type. Suddenly, you could type your text and then go back and edit it. Imagine that! You could adjust the font, size, and color of the type, responding to the ubiquitous need for changes after first creating an ...