Photoshop help?

March 8, 2006 5:30 AM

Photoshop help...Can you wrap text around an object in Photoshop 7.0?

Im looking to put a image on a page, but have text wrapped next to it so it follows the outline of the image. I think you can do this in Word, but is there anyway of doing it in Photoshop?
The only work around that I have found is to enter a line at a time in a seperate text layer, which is a pain in the arse, and very time consuming.
Any help is greatfully received.

posted by djstig to computers & internet (14 comments total)

I don't know if this particular command is in PS7 but you could try this method. Otherwise there are plenty of plugins that can do what you want. Check Andromeda.
posted by JJ86 at 5:47 AM on March 8, 2006

Yeah, that's the method I was going to suggest (I have Photoshop 7.0 myself). Type the text, warp the text, transform the text to conform to the outline of the image.

It's easier to do what the poster wants in Photoshop CS, but some of us just aren't there yet, sadly.
posted by Gator at 5:55 AM on March 8, 2006

You can't even do that in CS2 (aka PS 9). You need as least CS to make text follow paths, but that's not what you're looking for.
posted by pmbuko at 6:08 AM on March 8, 2006

After reading the other responses, I don't
think you guys understand what the
poster is asking. I believe he wants
a way of automatically having his
wrap to the contour of an object,
which I am manually doing here in
my post. Please correct me if I'm not
right about this, djstig.
posted by pmbuko at 6:11 AM on March 8, 2006

...having his text...
posted by pmbuko at 6:14 AM on March 8, 2006

Yep that is what I'm after pmbuko, I cannot suss out how to make the text follow the contours using the other methods.
posted by djstig at 6:17 AM on March 8, 2006

Ah, sorry. Well, if that's the case, he might try playing around with using paragraph text -- select the Type tool, hold down Alt (in Windows) and click and drag to create a text bounding box, which can then be typed in and skewed or otherwise transformed.
posted by Gator at 6:23 AM on March 8, 2006

I can transform and skew the text box all I want, however I can't get it to follow the outline of the object. If there is no way of doing this thats fine, however if anyone has any other ideas that would be even better.
posted by djstig at 6:45 AM on March 8, 2006

Automated text wrapping. Sounds like a job better suited for for Adobe Illustrator. See that's how Adobe gets ya.
posted by punkfloyd at 6:58 AM on March 8, 2006

Well, in a pinch, and failing any other solutions, using paragraph text is still a little more efficient than creating a whole bunch of separate text layers. Create the paragraph text bounding box next to your image, and type in your text, and just do a carriage return when you get close to the edge of the image (in other words, pretty much what pmbuko did in the comment above). No skewing or other noodling needed.
posted by Gator at 7:02 AM on March 8, 2006

Yes, Photoshop is not really suited for this, it will not be "automatic". InDesign will do this in two seconds if you know how to do it. You could always download the thirty day trial of Indesign CS2. There's a bit of a learning curve to figure out how to do a text wrap but it's perhaps an hour project if you've never used Indesign before.

Documents in Indesign can be exported as images if that's what the final output needs to be (.tiff, .jpg, etc.)
posted by jeremias at 7:24 AM on March 8, 2006

DO NOT SET TYPE IN PHOTOSHOP.

There's a reason it's called Photoshop. I deal with files made by clients and others every day, and every time someone sets type in PSD I need to redo it. This is why we have both Illustrator and Indesign and Quark and even Pagemaker.

Photoshop = bitmap. The others = vector. You want your type to stay vector so it will look very sharp. Setting it in photoshop is a quick way to guarantee that it will not ever be transportable / resizable, etc.
posted by luriete at 9:15 AM on March 8, 2006

Ditto on InDesign being fantastic for what you want to do.
posted by limeonaire at 10:23 AM on March 8, 2006

I generally frown on setting type in Photoshop as well, but it CAN now retain the vector information of fonts. Trying printing out a PSD file with type on a layer -- it'll look fine. Not gonna help if you have flatten and save as a purely rasterized format like TIF or JPG, though.
posted by robbie01 at 2:04 PM on March 8, 2006