Elements 10 lets you do more with your text than ever before

What You’ll Need:

>> Adobe Photoshop Elements 10
>> 20 Minutes

Difficulty: Hard

Elements 10 introduces the ability to run text along a curve. There are three ways of doing this, and the first is to run text around a selection. This is done with the Text on Selection tool, but selections made using it are rarely smooth. Any slight irregularity in the outline will cause individual characters to be drawn at different angles to those around them. This tool might work on very simple outlines, but for most everyday subjects it’s too unpredictable.

The Text on Shape tool works better. Here, you choose one of a handful of basic shapes from a drop-down menu on the options bar, drag out the shape to the size you want and click and type along its edge.

BEFORE: This photo looks perfect for us to add some text to.

AFTER: Applying text on a curve offers a greater sense of immersion in the picture.

It’s the restricted choice of shapes that’s the problem here, and it’s the third new tool, Text on Custom Path, which appears to offer the most scope, though even this too can need a little work. Your paths do have control points, but they’re generated automatically by Elements as you draw, and they’re not of the bezier type seen in Photoshop. You can drag the control points to reposition them, but without any bezier-style handles, it’s not always easy to control the outcome. You’ll often need to simplify the curve shape to avoid irregular character alignment. You can do this by å-clicking on control points that are clustered together, to thin them out and smooth the curve. You can also ß-click on segments of the path to add new control points.

It’s not always easy to get the text path exactly how you want it, but with a little practice you can get pretty close. And once you’ve succeeded, your text is added on a new layer. You can then rotate, skew and transform, and blend the text with your image in all manner of different ways.

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How to Create Text on a Path in Photoshop Elements

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  1. The New Type tools

  If you open the Type tool flydown, you’ll see the three new options at the bottom of the menu: Text on Selection, Text on Shape and Text on Custom Path tools. We’ll use the latter option for this walkthrough, since it offers most control over the text direction and shape.

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  2. Draw the Text Path

  Draw the text path freehand, just as if you were using the Freehand Lasso tool. It’s not like the bezier path tools in Photoshop, though you can adjust the path subsequently, as shown in the next couple of steps. Click the green check mark on the options bar to confirm it.

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  3. Type the Text

  Now position the cursor at the point of the path where you want the text to begin, then click to place the insertion point and start typing. The text will now follow the path you created, but it’s probably uneven -- it’s hard to create a smooth path at your first attempt.

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  4. Edit the Path

  To edit a text path, click the Refine Path button at the left of the options bar. Elements creates control points as you create the path and you can drag these to move them. Expect a certain amount of trial and error.

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  5. Transform the Text

  The text is set on a new layer -- you can use the Transform controls to adjust the shape. If you drag on the corner handles, it adjusts the skew of the text, or move the mouse pointer outside of a control handle and drag to rotate the text. Click the green check mark to confirm.

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  6. Add Layer Styles

  You can also add layer styles from the Effects palette. This is a green plastic effect supplied with a Wow! Photoshop book, but Elements has many other styles of its own. (You can adjust layer styles via the Layers menu, just not with quite the same control as Photoshop.)

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  7. Simplify Text Layers

  The transformation tools in Elements can change the shape of the text, but can’t add more subtle perspective effects. For this, you’ll need to Simplify the text layer via the Layers palette. (You’re converting the vector-based text layer into a regular bitmap image layer).

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  8. Perspective Effects

  Converting text to a bitmap layer is not ideal -- it means the text is no longer editable and can’t be scaled up smoothly. But it does enable you to apply proper perspective effects: hold down the Command key and drag the layer’s corner handles for a receding effect.

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  Quick Tip

  Maybe you don’t need the new text-on-a-path tools in Elements 10? It may be easier to create a regular horizontal text block and then apply the text warping command. You can apply a warp shape and a perspective effect at the same time.

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