Photoshop for beginners: how to add text to photos and decorate | Lesson | Photo, video, optics

Concise text on a photo can draw more attention to the meaning of the post than a huge explanation under the image. There is a high probability that the tape will simply be scrolled through and the most important thing will not be read. Or maybe you want to make beautiful stories with different fonts or sign a picture, indicating your authorship? In either case, you will need to add text to the photo. We’ll show you how to add text to a photo in Photoshop, as well as steal it with a stroke or shadow.

Signs in the form of letters, numbers draw the viewer’s attention to the image, forcing a person to hold their eyes and try to read familiar characters / Photo: unsplash.com

How to Add Text in Photoshop

To add text to a photo in Photoshop, open the photo and find the tool Text. It is located on the toolbar on the left and is an icon in the form of the letter T.

To call the tool quickly and not waste time searching, press the T key on the keyboard / Illustration: Elizaveta Lentchevicha, Photostore.Expert

At the instrument Text two subspecies:

• Horizontal Text / Horizontal Type Tool.
• Vertical Text / Vertical Type Tool.

Everything is intuitive here. Choose a tool based on whether you want text horizontal or vertical. To do this, click on the tool with the left mouse button.

After, Once you have chosen the tool, left-click on the place where you want to write the text.

Without releasing the left mouse button, draw a rectangle — this is where your future text will be located / Illustration: Elizaveta Chechevitsa, Fotosklad.Expert

As soon as you release the left mouse button, arbitrary text set by the developers will appear in the rectangle. This is necessary so that you can see what font, what color and size is now the default.

All «basic» text can be easily erased by pressing the Backspace or Delete keys on the keyboard / Illustration: Elizaveta Chechevitsa, Fotosklad.Expert

Type your text or paste the one you copied earlier.

Sometimes it may seem that the text in the frame has not appeared. Moreover, it does not appear, even when you yourself typed what you wanted there. Why this might happen:

• you print black text on a black background or white text on a white background. In general, text and background merge.
• by default, the font size is so large (the more rare but correct name is «point size» or «point size») that the letters do not fit in the frame. In this case, reduce the font size.
• you made the frame too small to fit the text. In this case, make the frame bigger and/or reduce the font size.

Customize main text parameters.

The developers put all the most important text settings in the menu located at the top of the screen / Illustration: Elizaveta Lentchevicha, Fotosklad.Expert

1. Font type. Times New Roman or Arial typefaces known to us from ancient times, as well as any fonts that you decide to download, will be located here. There are two options for searching for a font: click on the down arrow and select from the list, or click on the name of the font and start typing the font you want.

Read also:

How to install brushes, gradients, fonts and actions in Photoshop

2. Type of font. Bold, italic, bold italic, bookish, thin, normal — different fonts have their own set of these settings.

3. Size or font size. If you click on the arrow, a drop-down list of the sizes proposed by the developers will appear. For more fine-tuning for yourself, click on the box with the number and enter your size.

4. Centering the text. Left (as in the screenshot), center, right.

5. Font color. For example, in the screenshot, the font color is white. To change it, click on the white box. You will see a palette where you can choose any color.

To apply text settings, click on the checkmark at the top / Illustration: Elizaveta Lentchevicha, Photosklad.Expert

Make the font more interesting using additional text settings in the palette Character / Character.

If the palette is not in the workspace, go to the menu Window / Windows — Symbol / Character / Illustration: Elizaveta Chechevitsa, Photostore.Expert

What can be configured in the palette:

• type and type of font;
• font size;
• spacing between letters and between lines;
• height and thickness of letters;
• line spacing;
• color.

Thanks to this palette, we increased the space between the lines, made the top text bolder, and the bottom text flattened and increased the thickness of the letters in width / Illustration: Elizaveta Chechevitsa, Fotosklad.Expert

How to Move Text in Photoshop

If you are happy with the text, but not satisfied with its location, use the tool Move / Move Tool.

It is located on the left side of the screen, and you can quickly call it up with the hot key V / Illustration: Elizaveta Lentchevicha, Photostore.Expert

Now it’s enough just to pick up the text by holding the left mouse button and move it to the right place.

If you need more fine-tuning, move the text using the arrows on your keyboard. Then the text will move across the image by just one pixel. If you need to speed up the process, hold down Shift and use the arrows — the text will move 10 pixels at once.

How to Add Shadow to Text in Photoshop

Now the created text can be decorated. For example, make it more voluminous with a shadow. Below is a brief instruction on how to make a text shadow in a couple of moments.

1. To add a shadow to text in Photoshop, open the palette Layers / Layers. You can find it in the menu Window / Windows or by calling the hot key F7.

2. Click on the layer with the text you created.

All text layers in the palette are indicated by an icon with the letter T / Illustration: Elizaveta Chechevitsa, Photosklad.Expert

3. At the bottom of the palette, find the fx icon. These are the layer style settings.

Click on the icon and select Drop Shadow / Illustration: Elizaveta Lentchevicha, Photostore.Expert

4. In the window that opens, rearrange the settings to create a shadow. The box on the left side of the window will help you with this (visible in the screenshot). It lets you see how each setting changes the resulting shadow.

To create a shadow, we used four settings: changed the color (clicked on the red rectangle), opacity / opacity, the angle of the shadow / angle and distance / distance — the distance of the shadow from the font / Illustration: Elizaveta Chechevitsa, Fotosklad.Expert

How to Add a Text Stroke in Photoshop

Another way to add beautiful text to a photo is to make a stroke. By the way, you can add it right away with the shadow! We tell you how to do it.

1. In the palette Layers click on the fx layer style icon.

In the drop-down list that opens, select Stroke / Stroke / Illustration: Elizaveta Lentchevicha, Photostore.Expert

2. A menu with stroke settings will open. Also, like the shadow, there will be a preview in the form of a square on the left. So, moving each slider, you can immediately see the effect that this or that setting gives.

For example, a yellow stroke with a thickness / size of one pixel. Stroke placement / Position — Inside the text / Inside / Illustration: Elizaveta Lentchevicha, Fotosklad.Expert

To disable an already created shadow, click on the checkmark opposite Shadow / Drop Shadow.

Using the settings in the menu Symbol / Character and layer style settings in the palette Layers even the most ordinary font can be decorated and changed beyond recognition.