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This week we are actually going to do something.
This technique is really simple and you will see it all the time
in design both for print and the web. It is not confined to text
either. Look around and you will see this technique used anytime
some simple depth is needed in an image.
Let's start with an image, mine in 250 px x 250
px that has some text in it. You should have 2 layers here: 1.
The background 2. The text. What you want to do is to duplicate
the text layer twice and move those layers behind the original
text layer. Your original layer can be any color you want, but
the other two should consist of 1 white text layer, and 1 black
text layer.
Ok, now that you have that done, you should have
a layer palette that looks like this.
You can see that the back 2 layers are name Text
white and Text black respectively. This can be done by changing
the name of the layer in the Layer Properties dialog box. I do
this so that I can keep track of what layers are what. It's a
good idea to get in the habit of naming your layers. When you
get about 50 of them in an image, it becomes almost impossible
to tell one layer from the next if you leave them numbered.
Now what you want to do is to select the move
tool simply by pressing the V key on your keyboard or by
selecting it in the tools palette. Use the arrow keys to move
the white layer over one pixel and down one pixel. Depending on
the size of your image, this will have to be adjusted to your
taste. Using the arrow keys along with the Move tool is called
nudging. Remember this, because you will hear it a lot as you
take these lessons and others.
Now move the black layer up one pixel and to the
left one pixel. You should now have an image that resembles
this:
Now if you want the opposite effect, that is slightly raised
text, you can just reverse the black and white layers'
positions. You will get this look:
One of my favorite things to do is to create a text layer that
is the same color as the background and then use this technique
to set it in a bit. This is what it looks like:
This is really a simple technique, so I wanted
you to have a feel for it, before we move on to more difficult
tasks. You will soon find that you use this a lot, not only for
text, but also for any geometric shape that you want to set in a
bit. Here is an example.
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