TEXT ON A REVERSE PATH

Created February 7, 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. Thank you.

I was creating a logo for a client and while I could get the top graphic to curve the way I wanted, doing text on a path, I just couldn't figure out how to get the bottom text to curve. My dear friend, Mahogany, came to my rescue. After Mah helped me out, I realized that if I didn't know how to do this then others probably don't know either, and that is how this tutorial was born ~~ smiles~~ Mahogany agreed that this would be an excellent learning tutorial and that it was not necessary to mention her help. HA! I give credit where credit is due and I am hoping that Mah will bring her site back online SOON!

This tutorial is not for the beginner, although I will try to make the directions easy enough for a beginner to attempt it. I will not be making beginner screenshots, however there are a lot of screenshots in this tutorial. It is also written for putting on a web site, however you can also use it as a sigtag. If you are doing this tutorial for a website, figure out what the background of your site will be before doing this tutorial.

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.

Screenshots are resized and compressed for faster loading. Don't forget to SAVE your work often.

This tutorial is written in and for PSP Version 7.04 and assumes you have a working knowledge of PSP at an intermediate - advanced level. I am sure this can easily be done in Version 6 with a few adjustments in paths but I have only used Version 7 so I can't make promises *S*

FOR THIS TUTORIAL YOU WILL NEED:
JASC's PSP (30 day free trial)- You can get it HERE

Step 1:
Open a new image, 636x256, 16 million colors, transparent background. Flood fill with the color, pattern or gradient of your web site. Add a new layer (go to layers-->new raster layer). You need the new layer for Step 5 so make sure that you do this.

Step 2:
Set you foreground styles to black color and your background styles to null. Activate your preset shapes tool, set at Ellipse; Retain style UNchecked, Antialias and Create as Vector Checked; Line width=2.

Step 3:
Draw out your ellipse. You may want to go to View-->grids and make sure that you have your ellipse centered.

Step 4:
Change your background color, pattern or gradient to what you want text to be, foreground null. I personally used Mahogany's Purple Satin Gradient set at Linear Gradient, Angle 90. Mahogany has allowed me to share this gradient with you and you can find it HERE.

Step 5:
Activate your text tool. Place your cursor on the top oval and when you see the curved A, , click on it. Choose the font and size you want to use and make sure Floating and Antialias are checked. Make sure you have Center indented (I have an arrow showing you where). Have floating and antialias checked. Type in your text and click OK.

While it is floating you can move the text down on your sign with your mover tool. When you are happy with where it is placed, deselect (Ctrl +D). You will get a pop up saying "the current floating selection will be defloated down to the nearest raster layer. Do you want to continue?" Click yes. Your text will now be on the new layer that you created in Step 1.

Step 6:
This is the tricky part and why I say that this tutorial is not for a beginner. Activate your text tool and click on the lower part of the ellipse. Change your text options from Floating to Vector. I also made my lower text smaller than my upper text, of course the choice is yours. Type in the text that you want, Click OK and your text will be on top of your top text.

Step 7:
Click on your node edit, (this is the icon under your preset shapes on your tool bar), your text will disappear.

Right click on your graphic and choose Edit-->Reverse Path. You will not visibly see anything happening at this point.

Step 8:
Go to Image-->Flip. Image-->Mirror. Your text should now be at the bottom part of the ellipse. Sometimes I had to flip or mirror a second time, sometimes I didn't - I'm not sure what's up with that, but I wanted to let you know.

Step 9:
Go to you layer palette. Click on Layer3 and click the plus sign. You will now see the text you typed and the ellipse. Click on the text you typed.

Right Click and select Create Raster Layer. Go to Selections-->Promote to Layer. Your lower text will now be on it's own layer.

Step 10:
Go back to your Layer Palette and delete Layer 3.

This will remove your ellipse but keep your text in place.

Step 11:
If you would like to add an inner bevel to your text or a drop shadow do so on both layers. It is entirely up to you. I did add both, the inner bevel was whatever I had previously and the drop shadow I used these settings.

Add a tube or graphic in the middle of your text, as I did and you are set. I would like to thank Patao once again for creating the wonderful Lady In The Moon graphic for me that I use as my trademark.

I hope you have enjoyed this tutorial as much as I did creating it for you. I would like to thank my testers from my PSP_Dynasty group.

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.
Creations made from these tutorials are your creations.
Moon's Designs holds the copyright to all selections, original tubes and original images that I have created and provided for use within my tutorials. Page backgrounds and images are created exclusively for this website and may not be downloaded or used without written permission.
If you would like to use any of my tutorials for group lessons please contact me.

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TEXT ON A REVERSE PATH

If you would like to use this tutorial for group settings, please contact me. Just click on the above mail slot *S*

If you would like to use this tutorial for group settings, please contact me. Just click on the above mail slot S