Photoshop Elements 5: The Missing Manual

Chapter 14: Type in Elements 383

Warping Type

Elements always starts you off with anti-aliasing turned on, and 99 percent of the

time you’ll want to keep it on. The main reason to turn it off is to avoid fringing—a

line of unwanted pixels that make it look like the text was cut out from an image

with a colored background.

You turn anti-aliasing on and off by clicking the Anti-aliasing button (the two As)

in the Options bar. The button shows a dark outline when anti-aliasing is on. You

can also turn anti-aliasing off and on by going to Layer ➝ Type ➝ Anti-Alias Off or

Anti-Alias On. Once you simplify type, you can’t change the anti-aliasing setting

for the type.

TIP If you’re seeing really jagged type even with anti-aliasing turned on, check your resolution.

Type often looks poor at low resolution settings—just as photos do. See page 82 for more about

resolution.

Warping Type

With Elements, you can warp the shape of your type in all sorts of fun ways. You

can make it wave like a flag, bulge out, twist like a fish, arc up or down, and lots

more. These complex effects are really easy, too, and best of all, you can still edit

the type once you’ve applied the effects. Figure 14-6 shows just a few examples of

what you can do. If you add a Layer style (explained on page 358), warps are even

more effective.

WORKAROUND WORKSHOP

Using Asian Text Options to Control Text Spacing

Getting letters spaced correctly ...