Convert Text to Outline in Photoshop

Photoshop's text handling is very robust, but there are times when the fonts you have available are just not quite what you need. Or maybe you want to modify one character to be different than the rest. While you can't edit fonts directly, you can convert them to paths, and bring all of Photoshop's powerful tools into play. We'll show you how.

Steps

  1. Open Photoshop. Create the text you want to turn into outline, or open an existing document with non-rasterized type.
  2. Right-click on the text layer. Position your mouse over the actual text in the text layer (not the [T] icon) and right-click. From the contextual menu, select Convert to Shape.
    • Your text will now have a path associated with it (visible in the Paths window).
  3. Use the Direct Selection tool. This is available in the left-side Toolbar, either by clicking on the arrow icon or by typing "A." This will let you perform a number of modifications on the text outline.
  4. Change the fill properties. At the top of the window, you can select the fill and stroke properties. Change the fill from the default text color to a different color for every letter, a blend across all the characters, all stroke and no fill, patterns fill, etc. The fill possibilities are quite unlimited.
  5. Change the shape of the outline. Using the Direct Selection tool, you can change the font outline to make variations on standard text. Click on each anchor point, and drag, or select several points at once and make broader modifications, as desired.
  6. Deconstruct a letter. For example, to take the dot off the letter "i":
    • Switch to Direct Select tool. Click and drag over the path anchor points you want to edit or delete. Use Shift-Click to select multiple separate points. Then you can edit those points as a group, or press delete to remove that part of the shape.
    • You can also convert text to a "bitmap," which can be edited like any other pixels. Simply right-click on the text in the text layer, and select Rasterize Type. The type is no longer editable as a type layer (font sizes, styles, etc), but can now be painted on, erased from, etc.
    • Note that if you suspect you may want to be able to edit the actual text at some point, duplicate the text layer before doing any modifications.



Tips

  • This is a very powerful feature. Not only do you get most of the benefits of rasterized text—easily editable fills, ability to warp text as desired, etc.—you also have the freedom to rescale your text to any size. You can make it really large, really small, or anywhere in between, all without losing resolution as you would with a rasterized bitmap.

Warnings

  • Once text is converted to outline it is no longer a font...it is an object so you won't be able to edit the text or change the font, point size, etc.

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