1. Click on the "Text" tool icon , its on the main tool bar. Look at the "Layer Palette" box and make sure that the layer we added (Layer1) is the active layer. The active layer will be high-lighted. If its not high-lighted click on it to make it active. Move the cursor over your still blank image and click the left mouse button once to open the "Text" control window. The text control window has too many features to go over in this tutorial. For now choose a font style that is wide and has a fun appearance. I am using Informal011 Blk BT in my example. You may or may not have that font installed on your computer. The size is 48 and I set the kerning to 75. Find the "Create as" area and check anti-alias and floating. Click the OK button when ready.

2. Next click on "Selections" then "Select None". Now click on "Layers" then click on "Duplicate". The "Layer Palette" should now show three layers; Background, Layer1, Copy of Layer1. To help see what is happening, click on the eyeglass icon next to "Copy of Layer1" to turn that layer off for the moment. The image will still look the same as both layers are identical. Next click on "Layer1" to make it the active layer. Now click on "Colors" then hold the mouse over "Adjust" then click on "Brightness/Contrast".

Lower the "Brightness" control to -255 and click OK. The letters should be black at this point. Go back and click on the eyeglass icon to turn the top layer back on. Use the "Move" tool to move the top layer (the letters with the color) up and to the left just a little so you can see the shadow below the colored text. Place the "Move" tool over the colored letters and hold down the left mouse button while dragging the text. You should now see an image similar to the one below.

Part 4: "Peeling" the text 1. OK, so you're thinking it looks like a pretty standard image with a drop shadow. But by using this method we have seperated the drop shadow from the text. Now we can apply an effect to the text and the drop shadow separately. In the "Layer Palette" make the layer with the colored text the active layer, it should be "Copy of Layer1" unless you have made any changes. 2. Click on "Effects" then hold the mouse over "Geometric Effects" then click on "Wave". Most effects look best when applied sparingly so use the settings in the example image below. Later you can experiment to increase or decrease the peeling effect. Click the OK button when you are ready to proceed. 3. You should now see an image similar to the one below. Don't worry if the shadow and the text are not well aligned, we will fix that in a moment. First, in the "Layer Palette" make the layer with the drop shadow the active layer. Then click on "Effects" then hold the mouse over "Blur" then click on "Blur" or "Blur More" to give the image a feeling of depth. If necessary, use the "Move" tool to move the drop shadow or the colored text around to complete the effect. Just place the move tool over the colored text or the drop shadow, hold down the left mouse button and drag that part of the image to align the text and the shadow. 4. Here is the finished image saved as a JPG image with 25% compression. It looks like the text is peeling up off the page, at least I hope it does! As is often the case, I serendipitiously "discovered" how to create this effect while trying for a completely different effect. So I encourage you to have fun and experiment with PSP7 to discover other cool effects!

 
 

<< Back to Part 1 & 2

Home to Fresher Image>>