Working with text

You may ask yourself what is doing a text tool in a pure image editing software. Well Photonyx is a program that mainly concentrate on composition and editing of images. Furthermore, as you already know a picture is worth a thousand words. Nevertheless, except in a few seldom cases, a picture without any adjunction of text is hardly able to communicate a message. Adding text is useful for titling naturally, but the the text tool goes far beyond this simple utility by offering an unlimited range of possibilities to express your creativity. That is certainly a good explanation to existence of such a wide number of different fonts. Some of them are for typing text, some others are decorative.

Many, many fonts are at your disposale on the net ... some of them are free and some others not. But anyway there's absolutely everything you want on the net. You may start seeking by our resources & links page.

Intuitively, type characters are shapes that are designed using vectors. The zone that is within this shape will define whether pixels are or not part of the character. Doing that the computer "fills" this zone with color, creating a type character !

Second important thing for you to understand is that type is resolution dependant. The quality of type effects strongly depends on the resolution of the project you're working on. The resolution of type will be the same as the resolution of the whole image. Thus brings you the obligation to work on high rez images to render quality type effects specially when working with large type sizes.

Working with type within Photonyx is nothing comparable as using word processing or desktop publishing applications. Theses ones match the resolution of type to the on of your printer and offer you much more options for correcting and adjusting type. Anyway these capabilities go far beyond the purpose of using text within Photonyx. But don't be disappointed you can also do many things (like special effects) that a word processor will never do !

Using Type Objects

Type objects whitin Photonyx offer you a great number of editing options. Using the type tool (T) whithin Photonyx automatically creates a Type Object. Unlike the other objects you can't apply transformations or specail effects to type objects. The difference comes from the fact that type objects are vector based and not bitmapped.

The main advantage of using type objects is that you can recall the type tool dialog box and edit the text, color and font settings at any time.

Using type objects :

• Editing Type objects
• Modifying Type Objects
• Render type objects

Editing Type objects

Photonyx lets you add a type object using the type tool.

• Selcect the Type tool from the toolbar (T).
• Click in the current project where you want the text to appear.

You don't need to be very precise because you can easily displace the type object afterwards. In fact the type tool is only a shortcut for creating a type object. You can also create

• Using the Type tool (T) or the direct command : Object > Create > Type Object (Alt + T) displays the Type Object menu :

Whithin the Type tool dialog box just click in the text field, type in your text and once you're ready add formatting using the following options :

• font name
• leading
• font size
• spacing
• type styles
• type Alignment.
• type color

• Font name

Fonts are also called Typefaces refer to a complete set of characters forming a family in a particular design or style. Examples of typefaces are Times New Roman, Helvetica or Monotype sorts (that is not really a text typeface but much more like a collection of decorative clip art you can apply through the text tool).

• Font size

This is measured in points ( 1 point = 1/72 inch) or in pixels. Enter a value directly in the field.

If you want to scale text independently of resolution you should choose points. Entering a 72 value attribute a 1 inch size to the font. No matter how high is the resolution of your project.

If you don't feel confident working with points choose pixels. If you do that one point in the preview box will equal one pixel in the bitmapped image. If you choose a resolution higher that 72 dpi, each point may include many pixels.

• Leading

Leading, also called line spacing let you control the spacing between lines of text. Leading is measured from baseline to baseline. The leading setting uses the same unit of measurement you specify for the font size (either points or pixels).

• Spacing

You can control the spacing between letters using the Spacing option in the Type Tool dialog box. The Spacing setting uses the same unit of measurement that is specified for the font size (either points or pixels). Positive values increase the spacing; negative values reduce the spacing.

• Type Style

Choose between 5 Style options for type : bold, italic, underline,   and strikethrough, by checking the edit boxes. You apply these options individually or in combination. Some fonts already are style formatted.

For example if you apply a bold style on the Helvetica Regular font you achieve the same result as if you had selected the Helvetica Bold font ! In this particular cases choosing the bold stylized font or applying the bold yourself brings exactly the same type shape. Anyway you still can create interesting types by applying style to already stylized fonts.

• Alignment of the type

The right, center and left alignment options are relative to the insertion point that you click in the image.

• Open the Alignement drawer
• Select the alignement options you wish.

If you think that options for formatting and aligning text within Photonyx are poor ... remember that any text you type is automatically created as a new type object. You can easily render it as a normal object (shift + ctrl + R) So you have the numerous transformation possibilities  (ctrl + T) of the objects for creating incredible titles and text effects !

• Type color

To change the color of the text simply click in the Color square to display the Color Picker.

Modifying Type Objects

To re-edit a type object :

• Double-click in the type object in the objects palette
• or choose Objects >  Options > (Alt + O)
• Once open edit the text as usual (see below).

Render type objects

Once you have a type object, you may wish to render it as a bitmap object (the normal one).

• Object > Render (Shift + ctrl + R)

Once you render a type object it isn't a vector shape anymore. (What a big surprise!). So can't go back to the type tool dialog box. In counterpart you can apply all the transformations and special effects you want.