Forum: Author Hangout

In Illustrator, which I'm more familiar with, you can highlight the text and select full-justification from either the "Text" menu or an option button at the top. (The buttons appear when you select the text tool from the side menu.) If you're talking about creating a large text area to type in, then click, hold and drag until you have one the size you want.

That doesn't seem to work with Photoshop, as there are no text blocks you define (bounded areas where text is restricted to). I found, late last night, some brief info in the Adobe help about it. Apparently you've got to select the various text messages and then do a complicated combination click, but I haven't had a chance to try it out yet. You'd think you could just choose 'Justify', but those options are all grayed out. :(

I'm like you, I know just enough to get me into trouble, but not enough to really excel at anything.

Based on what I remember from a Photoshop course I did about 20 years, you should import images and text into different 'layers'. It's easier to resize and shift text when it's the only thing in a layer.

That's what I'm doing, but PS differentiates between 'character mode' (when you manually hit character return between each line) and 'paragraph mode' (where the text automatically wraps. However, I can't select Paragraph mode, and all the justification commands are grayed out. Clearly I'm missing a vital step, but I typically don't include much text in my images (other than titles). Normally I create the image and then add text later in another program.

The point I was trying to make was if you can find any other program to create your text, as you want to see it, and save it using any of the image formats, you could then import that image as a separate layer into PS.

That's a valid approach, and what I had been doing, creating the graphics in PS for export somewhere else, but creating the wraparound cover, I wanted to include everything in a single file.

Luckily, due to Trent's advice, I've worked through the problem.

Okay, I've just gotten it to work in Photoshop CS6...

Yep, that was the solution. You do build a text box, only it wasn't as obvious as it is in Illustrator. I was trying to fit text in next to a larger photo, so I had to play around with the justification rules, but it's working now.

Thanks!

That doesn't seem to work with Photoshop, as there are no text blocks you define (bounded areas where text is restricted to).

May I now gloat about it being possible in GIMP, which is free?

I wish I'd had the patience to learn GIMP years ago. Now this old dog ain't learnin' any new tricks like that...

I found a wonderful MAC graphics program with rivals Photoshop for a onetime $49 fee (vs. indefinite monthly payments to Adobe). Unfortunately, like most Mac programs, it doesn't believe readers know anything about file types. As a result, I can't create transparent files (despite the .png file format being a Mac invention). Thus I'm stuck with an older version (PS 6) of PS.