Turn Pictures Into Text

A great effect to use on greeting cards, T-shirts, and other slick stuff.

Dave Johnson

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Feature: Turn Pictures Into Text

Tell me: Who doesn't love cookies made with of old-fashioned cookie cutters? A few years ago I discovered how similar those cookie cutters can be to text in image editing software. What am I talking about? Simply this: I enjoy taking a digital image and punching out some text from the midst of it, leaving me with words filled with images. These words can stand alone or be used in greeting cards, on T-shirts, and in all sorts of other projects.

Punch Out Text

Creating your own image-filled text is actually a lot easier than making cookies. You need to start with a suitable digital image, then pick an appropriate font and start "stamping." For this example, let's create the word FARMS from an image of grass and hay bales in the Colorado Front Range.

Load the file into an image editor; I'll use Jasc's Paint Shop Pro in this example. Then go straight to the text controls. Click on the Text Tool (it looks like the letter A, and it's near the bottom of the toolbar on the left side of the screen). Now look at the Tool Options palette atop the screen. (If you don't see the palette, select View, Palettes, Tool Options to turn it on.) Make sure that you set the Create As option to Selection.

Next, find a font you like from the Font selections; click the drop-down arrow to see the list. Which fonts work best? You'll want a fat font--thin letters won't hold enough of the image to work well for this sort of project--so shoot for a nice, beefy choice like Plump or Cooper (if you have them on your PC). Paint Shop Pro shows you a small preview of the font in the list menu.

To help the letters look a little bigger, be sure to set the font to Bold in the Font Style control. Finally, set the size to 140; you'll probably have to type it in to the Size box, as most fonts don't allow that size as a normal selection. Why that big? Because I've already tried this project and I know that a font size of 140 will make the best use of the grassy area in the scene. I used Plump for my example: If you choose a different font for your own images, you'll have to experiment a bit to find the right size.

With the text tool still selected, click in the image just below and to the left of the bigger hay bale. Then type the word FARMS in the Text Entry box that appears on screen. You should also see the word appear in the image itself; if it isn't positioned where you want it, click Cancel and try again. When it looks about right, click Apply.

We're finally ready to create an image from the text. Choose Edit, Copy from the menu and then choose Edit, Paste, As New Image. The word, filled in with grass and hay, should appear in a new window. Save your work, and you're done.

Dave's Favorites: Paint Shop Pro 8

Readers frequently ask me what image editor is my favorite. And while I base most of my weekly tips, tricks, and editing techniques on Jasc's Paint Shop Pro 8, readers have recently reminded me that I haven't explained why I like Paint Shop Pro so much.

I've long been a fan of Paint Shop Pro. Back in the version 6 and 7 days, I described it as having 75 percent of what's truly useful in Adobe Photoshop for a small fraction of the price. Back then there was no Adobe Photoshop Elements, so that price/performance rating was important.

These days, it's nearly a dead heat between Elements 2 and Paint Shop Pro 8. But I think that Paint Shop Pro has the edge. The program's One Step Photo Fix is a spookily accurate auto-correction tool that improves the color and exposure of most digital photos with a single click. Elements has nothing that comes even close. Paint Shop Pro also boasts the best red-eye removal tool around: Instead of simply colorizing or desaturating the red like virtually all other image editors do, Paint Shop Pro actually stamps a highly customizable replacement eye in place. It even fixes red eye in animals. And since I "punch out" the background of photos pretty often, I like the speed, power, and accuracy of Paint Shop Pro's Background Eraser. It's dramatically smoother and faster than Adobe's alternative.

Of course, Paint Shop Pro 8 has all the standard tools: layers, an array of selection tools, smart masks, clone tools, straightening gadgets, and more. Sure, it has some quirks. For example, I hate the way you have to open a dialog box to vary the transparency of a layer; Adobe puts the opacity slider right on the main screen. But when all is said and done, Paint Shop Pro offers the most bang for the buck of any image editor on the market. You can find it for about $90 at PC World's Product Finder.

Q&A: Should I Get a Tablet?

I've recently been reading about a product from Wacom called a tablet. It sounds like a neat product. But is it too advanced for an amateur photographer like me to use on home projects?

--Burnett Moody, Dayton, Ohio

Tablets are neat gadgets, Burnett--but they're not necessarily for folks like us.

Tablets like the models sold by Wacom are an alternative to the mouse for graphic artists who want to translate sketches on a flat slate directly into cursor movements on a computer screen. Most tablets are pressure sensitive, so you can vary the intensity of paint strokes by how hard you press.

That said, I have personally never found tablets to be all that useful for digital image editing. You might, for instance, think that it would be easier to use a tablet and stylus to outline an object to make a selection--but that would only be easier if you could draw directly on the picture. That's not the case, though: You're manipulating a stylus on the tablet while looking at an image on the computer screen. That disconnect limits your ability to draw accurately. Bottom line? I've found that tablets are great for sketch artists and digital painters, but they don't have a lot of value for the digital photographer.

Hot Pics

Get published, get famous! Each week, we select our favorite reader-submitted photo based on creativity, originality and technique. Every month, the best of the weekly winners gets a prize valued at between $15 and $50.

Here's how to enter: Send us your photograph in JPEG format, at a resolution no higher than 640 by 480 pixels. Entries at higher resolutions will be immediately disqualified. If necessary, use an image editing program to reduce the file size of your image before e-mailing it to us. Include the title of your photo along with a short description and how you photographed it. Don't forget to send your name, e-mail address, and postal address. Before entering, please read the full description of the contest rules and regulations.

This week's Hot Pic: "Pointing at the Waves," by Alan Shefman, Thornhill, Ontario

Alan took this photo with a Nikon CoolPix 4300 at Daytona Beach, Florida. About this photo, Alan says: "I like the composition of this picture. The gulls in the foreground seem to be the center of attention, but in fact it is the woman in the background who dominates the scene. I like the way the lady pointing off into the distance directs your attention to the little girl playing in the surf."

Hot Pic of the Month: Each month we choose one of our weekly winners to be the Hot Pic of the Month. For our February winner, we chose "Sea Shell," taken by Joseph Wichnick from Middletown, New Jersey. Joseph was more brave about putting his camera in jeopardy than I'd suggest for most photographers, but he got amazing results.

Congratulations to Joseph and to everyone who won the Hot Pic of the Week this month. Keep those entries coming!