Open a new image with a white background and 16 million colors. [Note: you may find that you need to start with a background more closely matching the final background for the page, white has been chosen for the purposes of this tutorial.]
Choose the desired color for the text in the Active Foreground Color Box (see the Color Palette Lesson if you are unsure about this).
Now, add some text, choosing a font with some width and style to it such as the Elephant font chosen here. I've used a nice big 72 for the size although smaller choices could be interesting. Antialias and Floating must be checkmarked, alignment is your choice and has little effect unless you have more than one line of text. The Version 6 dialog box differs slightly, most noticeably in the font choice display. It also shows you the color choices and is more flexible in that area. Otherwise, it is bascially the same as the Version 5 Text Dialog shown below.
I have found that especially with curly fonts, the leading edge of a curl may be flattened in the first letter. To avoid this, put in a space before typing the text and the leading curl will be undamaged.
Back to our tutorial....
do NOT unselect
the text you've created.
On the menubar, choose
Image ...
Effects ...
Cutout
Use the precise settings shown in the dialog box screen capture to the right. Click OK and your results should be similar to the inset below.
The cutout effect itself can be used dramatically but when you apply the drop shadow to it without deselecting your text.....
On the menubar, choose
Image ...
Effects ...
Drop Shadow
Copy the settings shown here. After completeing the tutorial, try another image and play with the drop shadowing settings as well as the cutout settings for different effects. Keep scratch notes of what you do so you can recreate it if it turns out fantastic!
Now all you need to do is:
| © MaMaT | Last edited on 30 Mar 2002 |