Master Smithy Mithrin's PSP Text Effect Tutorial

Ok the first thing I want you to do is open the Pegasus image (just right click it and choose Save As and then open it in PSP) and then click on the Text button on the left toolbar. Look at Pic.1 for the red arrow that indicates the Text button. Notice that the lower part of the top toolbar has changed and now shows the Text options. I've put a red circle around the toolbar that we're going to use and I'll explain most of the elements now.

Let's just start on the left, with the tiny little X there. We don't want to click on it, but if you do you'll notice that the text toolbar will disappear. To get it back go to View at the top bar and then go to Palettes in the roll-down menu and select Tool Options to get it back. To the right of it we have the Preset option. We'll leave that alone for now.

Then we get the Create as option. This one will allow you to create the text either as a Vector, Selection or as Floating text. For now select Vector since we're going to use that for the text on the image.

Next to Create as we see Font. Available will be all fonts that are loaded in the Fonts folder in the original Windows folder. Click on the arrow that points down next to the font name and you'll get to see all fonts with preview examples to the right which is a really neat thing I think! Select Monotype Corsiva. That's the one we're going to use for this tutorial.

Then Size. This determines the text size you will use. Click on the arrow and you'll be able to select the size you want. For now I have selected 24 but notice that you can also highlight the size and type in your own manual text size.

Right next to size we see Stroke width. We'll have it at 1 for this tutorial but feel free to fool around with it to find out what it does and soon enough you'll notice that high numbers lead to unreadable text.

Then we have Anti Alias. Make sure the box is checked and right next to it we see Alignment. You have three choices here; Align left, Align center and Align Right. We want the text to be centered so please select Align center. Then to the right is line style. Just use the standard one and the other options don't matter for now. These are the most important options that you will need to know.

Now look at the picture. My idea for the text is to use a white/beige kind of color for the edge of the text and a purple color for the background. So first we're going to select the foreground color. Click on the Foreground and Stroke Properties window. Look at the arrow in Pic.3 if you're not sure which window it is. A new window will popup. (Pic.4)
To the right you'll see Texture. Uncheck that box. We don't need that now. Then to the left you will see the Style options. Notice the 3 options you can pick: Color, Gradient and Pattern. Select Color for now and try to click on the color circle. This circle you can use to find the basic color you want. Notice that the center square in the middle of the circle will change to the color you chose. Here you can find the right color hue you're after. Also note that at the bottom right the window Current changes to the color you just selected. You can also put in the color numbers near the bottom of the window. This can be handy if you have many images to add text to but want to keep the same settings. You could select a color and write down the numbers for each field so you could use exactly the same color later on.

But for now we're not going to do that. Instead we will use a Gradient. So click on Gradient now. You will be able to create your own custom ones but we'll stick to the presets now. Click on the square image at the top left of the new popup window and you'll see the list with all presets. (Pic.5) Scroll down to the F and select Fading foreground. Right below the selection you'll see 4 styles that you can select: Linear, Rectangular, Sunburst and Radial. Just fool around with these options later to see what they do to the text but for now select Linear. Then to the right of the selection you have two options. First Angle. You can use this to alter the angle and rotate the effect. Just keep it at 0 for now. Below you see Repeats. The default is 0 but set it to 1 now and notice that the effect is doubled now. Again, fool around with it later to become familiar with it. Then below that there is Invert. This will simply Invert the effect. Make sure this option is deselected. Now click Ok and we have our border effect selected.

Now in this tutorial we won't use Pattern but I will give you a brief explanation. Click on it and you'll see another window with many preset Patterns. You can select any of these and change the angle just like you could do with the Gradient; Scale works like Repeat does for Gradient.
Now we have to select the background color or fill color. We are going to use a purple-like color for the background. To do this, click on the Background and Fill Properties window in the Materials section and follow the instructions on Color as described above. I'll give you the numbers of the purple color that I used so you can use exactly the same color.

R: 106 H: 189
G: 66 S: 101
B: 152 L: 109

Now we are getting to the interesting part. Look at the top of the right toolbar. You'll see a window called Materials. (Pic.2) It looks like a boring little window but it's a very powerful tool. Now right under the word Materials you will see two little buttons. One named Colors and the other Swatches. Make sure you have Colors selected. Right under it you'll see the Color Palette.

Right next to the Color Palette you will see one tiny little window overlapping another window. Now this is important. The top one shows the color that will be used on the foreground of the text and the one beneath it is for the background color of the text. For both windows there are 3 options available. You can select a Color, use a Texture or make it Transparant. These options can be selected with the buttons right under each of the windows. Move your cursor over the buttons to see what their function is. More about these options later.

Then to the right of these two field you see two more windows. The top one shows the color of the foreground color and the bottom one shows the color of the background color. Notice when you click with the left mouse button anywhere on the color palette that the top window will change to the new color. The arrow to the left of it allows you to shift between foreground and background selection. Now it's time to start to apply these options.

So now that we have all text options selected it is time to apply the text. Move your cursor over the center of the Pegasus picture and left-click on it. A new window saying Text Entry will popup. (Pic.6) Now type in Pegasis. Notice that you can see the text appear on the image while you type. This will give you a good idea how it will look. Now don't worry about the position of the text but just hit apply.

You will see fine lines appear around the text on the Pegasus picture. What we want to do now is move the text to the area above the Pegasus and center it. Move your mouse over the center of the text selection and hold the left mouse button. Now drag the text to the upper part of the image and drop it there. (Pic.7) Also note that you can alter the size of the text by pulling the different size selectors around the borders of the selection.

But there's more to do. The image has to be centered horizontally. Now to do this right-click on the selection and go to Align Object and then Horz Center In Canvas. (Pic.8) The text is now horizontally centered.

Now you may have wondered why I had you type Pegasis instead of Pegasus. Well it's time to learn how to edit the text. To do so right-click on the text selection again and click on Edit Text. (Pic.9) The Text Entry window will pop up again so just edit the text from Pegasis to Pegasus and hit apply! Now we are done with adding the text but we're not finished yet.
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Now that the text is in place it is time to make it fit with the image. Right now it is a bit too solid so to speak and we're going to add some transparency to it. Look at the right toolbars and at the bottom you'll see the Layers field. You will see two selections: Background which is the original Pegasus image and Vector which is the text selection. Double click on vector and the Layer Properties window will popup. (Pic.10) You can zoom out the preview windows until you're able to see the text or just left click on the preview window and move the image until you see the text. Now set Opacity to 50 and notice the effect in the preview window. See how the text blends in perfectly with the background image. Time to go and explore the many available Blend mode options. Just select a few and look at the result in the preview window. I have selected Luminance for this text so you could apply that too. Now click on Ok and we're almost done!