This week I’m going to be looking into how to create shapes made of text using Paths in Photoshop.

I’m using Photoshop CS4 but I should imagine this applies to all the Creative Suite versions of Photoshop.

There are two different results that I could be talking about, one is text following along a path and the other is a block of text inside a path that forms a shape. I’m going to be showing the latter, if you want to learn more about the former then a look at this Tutorial 9 tip will help.

As always you should have a blank default canvas open. Find the Shape Tool (U) in the Toolbar.

You can click and hold or right click to expand it, let’s use the Ellipse tool to draw a circle. An alternative way to select this tool is to use Shift + U to cycle through the various shape tools.

Now before you draw the circle we need to set it to draw a path rather than a Shape Layer or Filled Object. These options can be found (with the shape tool selected) underneath the drop down menus, select the Paths option (highlighted).

You can draw out a perfect circle by holding Shift and clicking and dragging, this will create a Path that can be found under the Paths tab in the same Palette as the Layers and Channels tabs.

Now that it’s drawn get out the Type tool (T) and click inside the circle line, this will place the type cursor inside the circle. Start typing at a small size so it creates a rounder edge, in this example I’m using a Lorem Ipsum generator to write a load of nonsense.

I find it helps if you Fully Justify your text (under the Paragraph palette, Window > Paragraph if it’s not open) this way the text creates a smoother edged circle. Like this one.

 

Also

You can apply this to more complex shapes than just simple circles and squares, you just need to be able to create the shape as a path using the Pen tool or from a selection using the ‘Make work path from selection’ button at the bottom of the Paths palette.

That’s all folks.