Rasterizing Text

In Photoshop 6, when you want to paint on text or apply filters to TEXT, the type has to be converted to pixels. This is called

rasterizing or rendering the text.

Create a document758 x 576 RGB 72 dpi
Import image

titlesafe768576.jpg from sourceimages/MIKEHOWARTHTUTORIALS/photoshop.

Lock this layer

Choose

Type Tool

Click on image and type in your text.

Size test to

38pt.

Choose your own typeface

To rasterize text in Photoshop 6,

right click

(Windows) or

Control-click

(Mac) on the type layer name in the

layers

palette.

Choose

Rasterize Layer

from the pop-up menu.

You can also rasterize type by choosing

Layer > Rasterize > Type.

Next, open the

Layers palette

and turn on the

Lock Transparency

checkbox (red circle) to

a)

make sure we don't end up with any residue around the edges.

b)

prevent you from modifying the empty--aka transparent--areas of the layer.

Now,

Ctrl-click

(Windows)
Command-click (Macintosh) or the name of the layer to

select everything on it

To make text stand out from the background add an edge to the text.

Change the selected text to a new colour. Use the paintbucket to fill each letter.
Change the

foreground colour

to black (or any other colour that you want on your outline)

And the result is a crisper image.