Bending and Warping Type
Back in Step 39 of the “Creating and Formatting Text” exercise
(see page 393), we skewed some text backward using the Edit→Free
Transform command. But what if we wanted to apply a more elabo-
rate distortion? When working on text, Distort and Perspective are
dimmed in the Edit→Transform submenu. But that doesn’t mean
distortions are applicable only to images. Photoshop offers two ways
to distort live text layers:- You can combine a text layer with a shape outline to create a
line of type that flows along a curve, commonly known as text
on a path. - If that doesn’t suit your needs, you can warp text around a pre-
defined shape. This feature is similar to the Warp command that
we used in Lessons 7 and 8, except that you can’t apply a cus-
tom distortion. For that, you have to convert the text to shapes.
This exercise shows you how the two features work. First, we’ll wrap
text around the perimeter of a circle. Then we’ll stretch and distort
letters inside the contours of a text warp shape. All the while, our
text layers will remain live and fully editable.
- Open two images. The files in question are Space
radio.psd and Space text.psd, both in the Lesson 11
folder in Lesson Files-PsCS5 1on1. If Photoshop com-
plains that some layers need to be updated, click the Update
button. The first file contains a handful of text, shape, and image
layers, many of which I’ve assigned layer styles. The second file
contains two lines of white type against a black background.
Our first task is to take the text from the second file and flow it
around the black circle in the first file. So click the title bar for
Space text.psd to bring it to the front, as shown in Figure 11-47.
Figure 11-47.- Copy the top text layer. In the Layers panel, double-click the
T in front of the layer named Everyone (top line). Photoshop
switches to the type tool and selects all the type in the top line.
(If it does not, it’s probably because you double-clicked the layer
name instead of the T. Try again.) Choose Edit→Copy or press
Ctrl+C (�-C on the Mac).
408 Lesson 11: Text and Shapes