Phrustrating Photoshop Problem

[Dave Homewood]

I have Photoshop Elements 2.0

I am trying to use it to make text in a nice circle around something, but I simply cannot work it out. I've tried several online tutorials but they all seem to be for more complicated versions than mine.

The only thing I can find is Warp Text which distorts it all out of proportion.

Has anyone got any tips please?

[phil]

Hard isn't it?

Now I don't claim to know very much about photoshop, and I used it professionally every day for four years, so I stand to be corrected when I say there is no easy way to do it.

In PS 7 and above, once you have created a text layer you select it in the layers tab, and go to the 'create warped text' menu that resides next to the text colour box in the top of your screen.

Now from here you can use the drop down menu and select different effects, none of which are exactly what you are trying to do!

However there are two solutions, one is to use the 'Arc' selection, and once you've done that, go 'layer - rasterize layer' then go to 'Edit - transform' and play around with the different transformations.

This techniques might work if you are lucky with your choice of font size length of text and radius required. In other words you have to get pretty lucky for this to work. Normally the text will end up looking skewed and ugly.

The other method is very simple, but pretty time consuming, but what I always used when I had to get it right.

Make a circle layer the size you need your inside dia to be. It is just a guide and you will delete it later so make it whatever colour you want.

Make each letter on a different text layer. This is time consuming and can make life a little messy layer wise, so it pays to make layer sets for each words (layer sets are little folders for layers, to make a new set click on the little folder icon at the bottom of your layer tab, this isn't vital to the process but does keep things tidy).

Now all you need to do is select each layer (letter) in turn, and position it and rotate it appropriately using the circle you drew earlier as a guide. This way each letter will be the same size, its sides will be parrallel and not distorted in any way. Time consuming but it works. (to rotate go to 'Edit - transform - rotate' or select the layer and press control-T, then you can rotate by cliking just outside the layer and dragging it around using the little arrows that will appear.)

I hope this is all as clear as mud!

[Dave Homewood]

Thanks Phil, that's a very easy to understand guide. I'll give it a go a little later and see how it goes.

Cheers mate.