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Add Text with Horizontal Type Tool in Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop is a raster-based image editing software. It is developed by Adobe.Inc and available for both macOS and Windows operating systems. You can use Photoshop to create or edit images, posters, banners, logos, invitation cards, and various types of graphic designing work. It provides various tools for designing and editing and the type tools are one of them. In this article, we are going to discuss the different types of type tools in Photoshop. 

Type tools

The Type tools are used to add text inside the Photoshop document either in vertical or in the horizontal direction. The type tools are one of the easiest and extensively used tools in Photoshop. It is used in numerous ways. One very common usage is that we can see that labeling of images that are provided in our science books can also be done in Photoshop, where the labels are added using the type tools. It can also be used to create great backgrounds with the type mask tools and many more other ways. In Photoshop, there are four different types of type tools available:

  1. Horizontal Type tool
  2. Vertical Type Tool
  3. Horizontal Type Mask tool
  4. Vertical Type Mask Tool

You can select type tools from the tool palette. Here is the icon of type tools:

Horizontal Type Tool

The horizontal type tool is used to type text inside the Photoshop document in a horizontal direction. This is the only purpose of the horizontal type tool. Let’s see how to use the horizontal type tool with the help of an example: 

Step 1: Open a new blank document in Adobe Photoshop.

Step 2: Select the horizontal type tool from the type tool section.

Step 3: Click on the place where you want to add the text. The “Lorem Ipsum” will appear.  

Step 4: Delete it to add your own text.

Step 5: Click on the ✓ to save and the text added to the canvas.

Note: The size of your text may be very small when you do it. This is because your font size is set to a low value. Set your font size to a higher value to see the text.

Vertical Type tool

The vertical type tool has the same functions and properties as the horizontal type tool. But the only difference is that the vertical type tool helps you insert the text into your Photoshop document vertically unlike the horizontal type tool which adds horizontally and the rest of all the functions and properties are exactly the same.  Let’s see how to use the horizontal type tool with the help of an example: 

Step 1: Open a new blank document in Adobe Photoshop.

Step 2: Select the vertical type tool from the type tool section.

Step 3: Click on the place where you want to add the text. The “Lorem Ipsum” will appear.  

Step 4: Delete it to add your own text.

Step 5: Click on the ✓ to save and the text added to the canvas.

Horizontal Type Mask Tool

Some you want to create something with the text inserted into your document, like as shown below:

In the above image, we can see that the text “GEEKSFORGEEKS” contains an image instead of any solid color. This type of text is often seen in many images of videos and even on websites. This effect cannot be brought on by horizontal type tool/vertical type tool, for these types of text, we require the horizontal type mask tool. As the name says, the function of the horizontal type mask tool is that it uses the text as a mask over the layer as it turns the text into a selection.  Let’s now see how to use the horizontal type mask tool with the help of an example: 

Step 1: Open an image in the Photoshop document as shown below:

Step 2: Select the horizontal type mask tool from the tool palette.

Step 3: Click on the document to insert the text. You will see the whole document will turn reddish except your text inserted.

Step 4: Click on the ✓ to save.

Step 5: You will see that the whole text is transformed into a selection. (Note: After it turns into a selection, you can apply all the properties of the selection tool like Select inverse, Transform selection, etc.)

Step 6: Now you can apply the mask by clicking on the mask option in the layers panel.

Step 7: You will get the results as shown below:

Hence, this is how you can add the horizontal type mask to the image.  

NOTE: In the final image, I have added the black background layer beneath the type layer. You can see it below:

The horizontal type mask tool can be used in numerous ways like in website layouts, background images, and so on.

Vertical Type mask tool

The vertical-type mask tool is also a type mask tool having the same properties as the horizontal type mask tool except the only difference is that the vertical type mask tool inserts the text in a vertical manner. Let’s now see how to use the vertical type mask tool with the help of an example: 

Step 1: Open an image in the Photoshop document as shown below:

Step 2: Select the vertical type mask tool from the tool palette.

Step 3: Click on the document to insert the text. You will see the whole document will turn reddish except your text inserted.

Step 4: Click on the ✓ to save.

Step 5: You will see that the whole text is transformed into a selection. (Note: After it turns into a selection, you can apply all the properties of the selection tool like Select inverse, Transform selection, etc.)

Step 6: Now you can apply the mask by clicking on the mask option in the layers panel.

Step 7: You will get the results as shown below:

Options of Type tools

All four types of type tools in Photoshop have the same properties/options. The below image shows the option/properties bar that appears below the menu bar when we use the type tools in Photoshop.  

Let’s now understand the function of the properties/options one by one:

1. Toggle text orientation icon

This option can be termed as the shortcut to change from the horizontal type tool to the vertical type tool or vice-versa.  

2. Font family option

This option helps us to define the font family of the font to be used. When we click on it a dialog box opens showing numerous font options. We can choose the fonts from the dialog box simply by clicking on the desired font.

3. Font style 

This option shows the different font styles. In Photoshop, there were four different font styles:

  1. Regular(Normal)
  2. Bold
  3. Italic
  4. Bold italic.

4. Text size

This option helps us to increase the font size of the text. It has several predefined values, like 8pt, 48pt, 72pt, and so on but one can type his/her own value too.

5. Create Wrap text

This option helps us to create wrap text.
 

7. Alignment

Photoshop has three align options – Left, Center, Right. By default, the left alignment is enabled. We can enable any one of them by clicking on them.

8. Font color

This option is used to sets the font color. By default, the color is set to black. To set it to a different color, click on the color icon, and choose your own color and click OK to apply it.

9. 3D

This option is used to create 3D text.

How to insert a paragraph text in Photoshop?

In Photoshop we can add paragraphs using the following steps:

Step 1: Select any type tool (here we select the horizontal type tool).

Step 2: Move the mouse pointer anywhere on the canvas and start dragging the mouse pointer across the canvas as shown below:

Step 3: You will see a dotted text box formed with the sample Lorem Ipsum text.

Step 4: Delete it and add your own paragraph as shown below:

Here, we have taken a horizontal type tool. Now if we do the same with the vertical type tool and add some text, it will appear as shown below:

Only the difference is that when you insert the text it is from right to left.


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