in this video i'm going to show you how to add an image to text in affinity photo let's start
by creating a new empty document where we can add our text select file then new in the affinity
photo menu we'll make the image the same size as a youtube thumbnail which is 1920 by 1080 pixels
although there's a preset for this in the web section i'll show you how to define your own start
by setting the document units to pixels and then orientation to landscape now enter the width as
1920 pixels and the height is 1080 pixels we don't need to change the dpi setting because you only
need that for printing in the color section set the color format to be rgb 16-bit and the color
profile to be srgb then click the create button to produce an empty document where we can add text
to add the text we need to use one of the tools affinity has two text tools in the tools palette
there's the frame text tool which is really for adding blocks of text it's a bit like a word
processor and we don't want that the other is the artistic text tool which is the one we need to use
because the two text tools are grouped you might need to click this small gray triangle to the
bottom right of the icon this displays the tools in the group and you can pick the one you want
that icon then appears in the tools palette click on the document and drag with your mouse to select
the size of text you want don't worry if you don't get it right i'll show you how to change
it shortly after releasing the mouse button enter the text you want to use for this effect
in this example it's the word coffee now click the move tool in the tools palette which finishes
the text entry the move tool allows us to click and drag the text to reposition it we then need
to open the image we want to add to the text i've chosen this photo of coffee beans copied
the image using the edit menu but you can also use the command and c shortcut that's ctrl and c on a
pc switch to the document with the text and paste the image that you've copied you'll see that it's
added in the layer studio panel as a new image layer if i hide the image layer you can see the
text again because the pixels of the image layer are covering it the next bit is the tricky part
because you need to drag and drop the image onto the text layer but in a very specific position
first move the image over the text layer so that a blue line appears below it this shows where the
new layer is going to be added to what we call the layer stack but don't immediately drop it
in this position instead drag it over to the right so that the blue line becomes indented
affinity photo should then show a preview of the text filled with the image that's when you can
release the image layer and drop it into position if you don't drag to the right so that the blue
line's indented it won't work instead you'll just see the regular text the problem we now
have is that the text isn't wide enough to show the image so that you don't know these are coffee
beans let's fix that by changing the font click on the layer with the text in the layer studio panel
to select it we can then adjust the text settings in the affinity photo toolbar first try changing
to a bold version of the font if there is one another option is to change to a heavier font
something like the impact font usually works well and most people have this installed if
you can't find a suitable font to use head over to google fonts and find a free one to download there
you can position the text on the page by clicking and dragging with the move tool click the layer
with the text in the layer studio panel to select it then drag the text into position notice how
the image and text move together you can also reposition the image separately to the text by
selecting it in the layer studio panel then click and drag the image to position it the effects
looking better but it's still tricky to see the coffee beans because the image is too large
we'll fix this by resizing the image with the move tool select the image by clicking it in the layer
studio panel this displays an outline around the image with drag handles in the corner and on the
centers of the edges click on one of the corner handles and whilst holding down your mouse button
drag this resizes the image to make it larger or smaller we use the corner drag handles and not the
ones on the edges because it keeps the image in proportion if you resize the image from the edges
it's going to change the aspect ratio which squashes the image you now have an image added to
your text but there are a couple of refinements to make let's make the text easier to read by adding
a thin outline to it first select the text layer in the layers studio panel by clicking it you can
then click the layer effects icon at the bottom of the panel this opens the effects dialog which
we can use to add special effects to the text click the outline option to display the controls
then click the tick mark to the left of the outline option to turn it on we now need to set
how wide an outline to add to the text using the radius slider setting a radius of 1 to two pixels
is all that's really needed we can then position the outline with our alignment drop down this has
options to add the outline to the inside outside or center edge of the text watch the area between
the two letter f's to see the difference with this font we need to set the alignment to inside
otherwise the letters start to run into each other finally i'm going to change the color of the
outline because black is a bit too harsh clicking the colour swatch opens a colour picker dialog
where we can manually set the colour for this text it would be nice to use a dark brown colour we
can take a sample from the image by clicking and dragging the sample tool onto an area of the image
the simple color then appears in the dialog which we can then click to select notice the difference
when i turn the outline off and on it's subtle but the text is easier to read with the outline
the other effect we'll add is a drop shadow which affinity photo calls an outer shadow
click the tick mark to activate the effect and then click the heading to display the controls
use the radius slider to set how large the shadow effect is the offset to define how far from the
texture shadow appears then the intensity slider to control how strong the effect is
the finished image text looks good doesn't it i hope you found this video helpful
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