How to Add Text to Journal Icons in Photoshop
Icons can be a fun way to identify and express yourself in journal posts and comments. The pictures you select, the colors you choose and the words you add can all work together to show your thoughts, opinions or sense of humor. Learn how to add text to journal icons in Photoshop and create that complete creative picture.
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Instructions
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Choose "File" then "Open" from the Photoshop top menu bar. If you don't already have the Photoshop software, see the Resources section below for links to purchase it.
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2
Select the icon you want to add text to, then click the "Open" button.
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3
Choose "Window" from the file menu, then select "Navigator," "Options" and "Tools." A check mark will appear in front of the windows you've selected.
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Go to your "Tools" window. Click on the large "T" for the Horizontal Type Tool. When the "T" becomes highlighted, that tool is now active with your cursor.
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Click on the icon in the area you would like to add text. Don't worry about being exact; you can always adjust the positioning later. Once you click, at the top of the window you'll see all your choices for font style, size and boldness. Make selections now if you have a particular font in mind, or continue on to Step 6.
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Click on the colored box next to the font choices. This is how you will choose the color of your text.
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Click on the narrow color bar in the "Color Picker" window. This will bring up a range of colors in the large square. Click on any part of the square to get the shade of color you're looking for. You can also play with the color levels by changing the numbers up or down. Be sure to select a color that can be seen over the part of the image you'll be typing on. A mostly white icon, for example, would work well with black or red text. White or yellow wouldn't show up against the white background. Remember that bright or deep colors usually show up better than pale ones. Click "OK" when you've selected the color.
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8
Type your text in. Use the navigator window to make sure your icon is at 100 percent. You need to see how the text size, font and color look on the actual size of the icon. You can see in the photo that our text is too small and not clear enough to be read.
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Highlight the text. Now click on the font style in the top menu. With both areas highlighted, you can use your arrow keys on the keyboard to scroll through all the font styles. Each font you scroll to will change your highlighted icon text, so you can see how those fonts alter the clarity of the text. While the text is highlighted, you can also change the size and color. Play with your options until you find one that displays the best.
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10
Click on any other tool in the "Tool" window. This will remove the underline and cursor from the text, and show you what your finished product looks like. If it's still not exactly right, just choose the Type tool again and click on the area where your text is. When the underlined area appears, you know you can edit the text.
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11
Use the "Navigator" window to enlarge the icon. If you hover the cursor underneath the underlined text, you can move your text to anywhere on the icon. This way you can center the text or move it to a spot where the font color shows more clearly.
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Use the "Navigator" window to return the icon to 100 percent. When you're satisfied with how the icon looks, choose "File" and "Save for Web" to save your icon in a web-friendly file size.
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Tips & Warnings
The type tool works just like a word processing program. Hitting the "Enter" key will drop you down to another line. If you want to add text vertically, just hit "Enter" after each letter you type. The letters will be spaced evenly on the vertical. Use the space bar to stagger the letters if you want to create a diagonal. If you want to randomly enter words on different levels, then just reapply the type tool to a different area each time you put in new text. Once you click that cursor on a different starting point, however, you can not go back and edit other lines. Using the "Back" choice from the menu will get you there, but you'll lose any work you did after the line of text you've gone back to.
When selecting a text color, it can help to slide the "Color Picker" window over to view your icon at the same time. This way it's easier to match or contrast the colors in the icon with what you're selecting in the "Color Picker" window.
Check your spelling! It's easy to get distracted by colors and fonts and make a text error, but it'll also be pretty embarrassing to be posting all over the journal database with an icon that has a misspelled word in it. If in doubt, cut the text and paste it into a word processing document and run the spell check on it. This won't save you from problems like "there" instead of "their," but it can spare you from spelling "weird" as "wierd"!
