EXTRUDED TEXT

Created August 6, 2003 © Copyright Moon's Designs
Property of Moon's Designs
This is my creation, any similarity to other tutorials on the Internet is unintentional.
Please do not copy or place this tutorial or any graphics to any other place without written permission directly from me. Tutorials are NOT to be scripted and shared with others, you may script them for your own use only. Thank you.

This tutorial is written in and for PSP8 and assumes you have a working knowledge of PSP at an intermediate level, although I do believe that a beginner could accomplish this.

YOU WILL NEED:
JASC's PSP8 (30 day free trial) - You can get it HERE

Extruded text is a lot of fun, and something that even though it could be done in PSP7, it wasn't an easy task. You would have to do a lot of copy and pasting just to make sure you didn't have the jaggies on your text. In PSP8 there are a couple of ways that I have discovered to do extruded text easily. One is with using the Offset effect, which I explain on my V8 The Easy Way CD's. This tutorial will show you how to accomplish this by using text on a path and options in the Pen tool.

My tutorials are only guidelines to help you accomplish a certain creation. Please feel free to be inventive and take whatever liberties you would like. I encourage each of you to do your "own thing" and make your creation yours! Your finished creation is yours to do with as you please.

Step 1:
Open a new image, 600x300 transparent background.

Step 2:
Set your foreground color to black and your background to transparent.

Step 3:
Activate your pen tool, , create as vector, drawing mode and point to point. Line width = 1.00. I have my tool options palette fixed so you can see everything on it.

Starting on the far left of your image, click and set 3 points in a straight line.

Step 4:
Right click on your first node, choose node type and then choose curve after.

You will get a small arrowhead just past your first node.

Hover your cursor over the arrowhead and you will get two curved arrows. Pull up and out until you get something like this.

Step 5:
Right click on your last node, choose node type, choose curve before. You will get a small circle to the left of your last node.

Hover your mouse over the circle to get the double arrows and pull down and out.

You can move your nodes, pulling out or in, up or down, to make your path the way you would like it to look. Here is how my path looks.

Step 6:
Activate your Text tool, . Change the background color to the color you would like your text. I used green, #008000. On your tool options palette create as vector, choose your font and size (I used Georgia, size 48), antialias checked. I didn't want an outline so I have my stroke set to 0. Alignment is set to left align.

Hover your cursor to the far left side of your path, you will get this symbol, , which allows you to create your text on your path. Click on your canvas and your text box will appear. Type in your text and hit apply.

Step 7:
Go to your layer palette. Click on the plus sign next to your Vector 1 layer. Click on the eye next to your New Shape, a red X will appear and this will hide your layer.

Right click on your text layer, mine says Moon's Designs, choose Convert Text to Curves, choose As Single Shape.

Go to Layers-->Duplicate.

Step 8:
Activate your bottom text layer, which is Vector 1. If you would like the extruded text to be a different color, as mine is, right click on your layer. Choose properties and change your fill color.

I changed mine to a pale yellow.

Step 9:
Activate your pen tool. You will see a lot of nodes around your text.

You will want to select all of your nodes by either using the keyboard shortcut of Ctrl+A, or placing your cursor on one node, right click, choose edit, choose select all.

Step 10:
On your tool options palette click on the transformation type, , choose duplication. Set your X and Y offset values to 1. Apply the duplication by clicking the check mark.

You can apply this as many times as you want to. I applied mine 7 times. NOTE: Give PSP time to apply before clicking the check mark again.

Step 11:
Activate any other tool to see your extruded text. I clicked on the pan tool.

If you are unhappy with the colors you have chosen, you can still go back and change them. I wasn't thrilled with the lighter yellow. Right click on your Vector 1 layer, choose properties, and change the color of your fill. I changed mine to a slightly darker yellow color. NOTE: Do any changes you want to do before converting to raster layer.

Step 12:
Right click on your Copy of Vector 1 layer, that's your top layer, and choose Convert to Raster. Let's apply a drop shadow. Go to Effects-->3D Effects-->Drop Shadow and apply the following settings.

(Offsets = 3; Opacity = 75; Blur = 3.96)

Step 13.
Right click on your Vector 1 layer. Convert to Raster. Apply the same drop Shadow.

We're getting a nice 3D effect aren't we?

Step 14:
There is a lot of excess transparency that you might like to remove. Activate your crop tool, . Click on your canvas and draw a rectangle around your text. Use the nodes to move it close to your text.

Double click on your canvas to apply your crop, or click the check mark on your tool options palette.

Step 15.
You can now save your extruded text in .pspimage format to use again, or export it as a tube. Because of the drop shadow, you will need to be careful if you want to save it as a gif. I did save it following my transparent gif tutorial, changing the blend with background option to match the yellow in the text.

I hope you have enjoyed this tutorial as much as I have had creating it for you. If you have any problems, comments or questions please do not hesitate to E-mail me.

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Tutorial written and created by Patti Wavinak for Moon's Designs. These Tutorials are copyrighted by law. You may LINK to them only. You may not remove any of the graphics, zip files or html within these pages to reproduce these Tutorials, without the expressed permission of Moon's Designs. These pages may not be removed from this website and sent via e-mail, nor saved, stored or archived in files in YahooGroups or other mailing list sites, nor may they be translated and placed on another site.
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