Motivation: Another look at filling text with images in Paint Shop Pro.
Feature: Paint Shop Pro 8 or Paint Shop Pro 9

In our previous Text Tools Tip we showed how to use Patterns to fill text (or vector shapes for that matter) with a user selected image. In that tutorial we noted that there is often more than one way to accomplish a task at PaintShop Pro. Well this tutorial will show another way of filling text with an image - or more properly having a stencil or mask protect "absorb" an image by protecting the text part of the image from being cut away.

Here is what we want to do - the image at the left is our background image. We want to paint over it a Toronto Walls image in the letters "TOWALLS". Look at the second screenshot below for the Toronto Walls image.

But first a quick comment on our background image. It was made in a 2 step process. 1)Fill the empty original with a white to black horizontal gradient; 2)then select a rectangular area slightly displaced to the lower left using a feather of 30 pixels and filling that selection with a checkerboard pattern - one of the defaults available with PaintShop Pro.

So after choosing which picture to use for the TOWALLS fill we have to resize it to roughly fill the checkerboard pattern. Unfortunately PaintShopPro does not have a convenient measuring tool like Canvas 8 or Micrografx Designer; so we use the Crop tool.

Just adjust the crop area to where the TOWalls layer is to fit. Then just read the Width and Height values and use them to Resize the TOWalls image before copying it as a layer to the clipboard.

Now switch to the checkerboard background image, click the Edit | Paste | Paste as New Layer and then center the wall image over the checkerboard. The screenshot at the left shows the combined images.

There are now two layers to this image the top layer,TOWalls, which is active and the background checkerboard layer. The text will be applied to the top layer using Create as: Selection. Now text created as a selection looks likes it going to be filled with the foreground and background styling (i.e. color/pattern/gradient you have selected in the Material palette)just like a floating selection. But not to worry, as soon as you ok the text, the foreground/background styling disappears and you are left with the text selection.

Here is where the trick comes in. You must choose Selections | Edit Selections immediately after okaying the text and before you do any transformations or operations on the text selection. Otherwise the text selection will pick up or absorb the underlying wall image right away. We want to delay that until we have the text selection properly scaled and positioned over the Wall image. You can see a screenshot of our final goal at the left.

The text selection turns ruddy red which indicates the masked area. We choose the Raster Deform tool Mode: Scale. This will allow us to scale up the TOWALLS text selection to fit snugly over the wall image layer. We could use any of Paint Shop Pro's brushes and tools to add and subtract from the masked area. Here is the rule: Dark colors remove masking and light colors add to the mask. White adds the most and black erases. See the future tip on masking for more details.
Once the text selection is properly resized, we are ready for our last step of PaintShop pro magic. But first we must turn the EDit Selection mode of operation off. We do this by clicking Selections | Edit Selection. And immediately the red mask is replaced by the marquee border. So if you have a red mask in your image that is a reminder that you have not turned off the Edit Selection mode.

Now the last two steps are to choose the Selections | Invert to invert the mask. And then Edit | Cut to cut away all the part of the image outside the selected text. As you can see from the screenshot above this reveals the underlying checkerboard background..

Our final touch is to add a drop shadow. To do so, Selections | Invert reselects the text area - then use Effects | 3D Effects | Drop Shadow to add the drop shadowing to help emphasize the text.

So lets review. There are two ways of getting images into text. One involves the user creating a custom pattern with the image to be filled into the text. The text used is Create as: Floating. The second method which we just reviewed in this tutorial involves using a selection to "absorb" the underlying image layer. The text setting is Create as : Selection. Finally we have just touched upon some of the things you can do with images in text - experiment around try applying some effects to the selected text or its inverse. Also applying brush and other effects to the edit mask can produce some neat results.

By the way, if you get the idea that the Tool Options palette gets used a lot you are right so memorize these keyboard toggle switch settings:
F4 key - toggles the Tool Options palette
F6 key - toggles the Materials palette
F8 key - toggles the Layers palette
Just check the Help | Keyboard Map for Paintshop Pro's full keyboard settings. And as with everything in PaintShop Pro the keyboard settings can be customized. Check the regular help file for details.

(c)JBSurveyer