How to Letter Brush Strokes

Make your text look like it was painted with a brush.

There are a wide variety of fonts available within graphics editing programs and on the Internet, but sometimes you simply want to convert a font to a certain type of brush stroke for a unique look. You can accomplish this in just about any professional graphics editor such as Photoshop, GIMP or Pixelmator, and the process is nearly identical for each editor. By choosing different brush types, you can create a wide variety of interesting text effects.

Things You'll Need

• Graphics editing software

Instructions

1. Click the "Text" tool to select it. Choose the font and size you would like to use as the outline for your brush strokes in the options window and click and drag on the canvas to create a text box, then type your text into the box.

2. Right-click the text and choose "Create Work Path" or "Create Path from Text" depending on your program. This creates a path from the text that can be used with any brush stroke. Your text will be outlined.

3. Click "Layer" in the top toolbar and choose "New Layer" to create a new layer. Click and drag the new layer above the text layer in the Layers window if necessary.

4. Click the "Show/Hide" icon next to the text layer to hide it from view. Click the new layer once to make sure it is selected.

5. Click the "Brush" icon in the tools palette to select it. Right-click inside the canvas to bring up the brush options menu and choose a brush type from the presets. Adjust the size and hardness of the brush if necessary.

6. Click the "Paths" tab in the Layers window, then right-click the path and choose "Stroke." Change the option to "Brush," then click "OK." The lettering path will be outlined with brush strokes.

References

• Photoshop Essentials: Stroke Text with a Brush
• GIMP: Stroking a Path