In this video, I'm going to show you how to type in a circle in Photoshop.
Hi. Welcome back to the photoshoptrainingchannel.
com. I'm Jesús Ramirez.
In this video, I'm going to show you how to type in a circular path in Photoshop.
Believe it or not, typing in a circle is one of the most frequently asked Photoshop questions
that I get. I already have a tutorial that covers this
topic, but it's a few years old and I felt that it needed an update.
This video is going to be a complete step-by-step guide on typing in a path, which will, of
course, help you type in a circle. Why don't we jump right into the tutorial?
We're going to work with this document that contains two layers, a background layer and
a simple design element, where we're going to place our text.
If you want to follow along with me, then you can find the tutorial image link down
below in the description.
Before we get started, I'm going to create guides to both help us visualize the center
of the document and to help us align the text. In the new version of Photoshop, all you have
to do is go into the View menu and select New Guide Layout.
In this window, enter the number 2 on both the columns and rows and make sure that everything
else is left blank. Press OK, and you'll see the guides appear
over your image, and where they meet is where you'll find the center of the document.
If you're in an older version of Photoshop like Photoshop CS6, what you can do instead
is enable your rulers by pressing Ctrl R on Windows, Command R in the Mac.
Then, click-and-drag a horizontal and vertical ruler to the center of the canvas.
The ruler should snap right into place. If they don't, make sure that you enable the
snap feature from the View menu.
By the way, here's a quick tip for you. If you accidentally drag on a vertical ruler
but you meant to drag on a horizontal one, you don't need to delete it and start from
scratch. Instead, hold the Alt key on Windows, that's
the Option key on the Mac, to flip the guide. But anyway, if you want to double-check and
make sure that your rulers are in the right place, you can right-click on the ruler and
select Percent. Both the horizontal and vertical rulers should
be at 50%, which is right in the center of our canvas.
Now that we have our guides, let's create the path that will allow us to type in a circle.
From the toolbar, select the Ellipse tool and make sure that in the Options bar you
select Path from this dropdown. Then, click right in the center where the
two guides meets, that should be the center of the document, and drag out while holding
the Alt key on Windows, that's the Option key on the Mac, to create a circle from the
center. Also, depending on your settings and the version
of Photoshop that you're in, you may need to hold the Shift key to constrain the path
into a perfect circle.
Once you have a path about this big, release the mouse button to complete your path.
Select the Horizontal Type tool from the toolbar. From the Options bar, set your text alignment
to the left by clicking on this icon and set your color to white by double-clicking on
this color swatch and selecting white from the color picker.
I'll Press OK, and by the way, I have my font set to Arial Black at 80 points.
When you hover over the path, pay close attention to the icon.
If you see a squiggly, wavy line, then that means that when you click, you'll type on
the path. If you move just a little bit further past
the path, you'll see an icon with a circle around the type cursor.
If you were to click at that point, then you will type inside the circle not around it.
In this case, this is not what I want, so I'll press the Esc key to exit the active
text, and I'll press Ctrl Z on Windows, Command Z on the Mac, to undo.
And I'll hover back on the path, and when I see the wavy line icon, I'll click.
And Photoshop will place dummy text around the circle, and I can type whatever I like.
I'll type, "Photoshop training channel". When you're done, click on the check mark,
or you can press Enter on Windows, that's Return on the Mac, to commit your changes.
Now, this is the part that can get a little confusing, so I'm going to take it slow so
that you can understand the concepts. First, lemme show you what most people would
do in this situation, then I'll show you why I prefer a different method.
I'm going to select the Move tool and press Ctrl T, Command T on the Mac, to transform,
then move the reference point to the center and click-and-drag to rotate the text.
And while this method certainly works fine, I don't think that this is the most efficient
way to work. Also, transforming your text layers can give
you unwanted results, especially if you're working with character styles.
If you want to find out more on why that is, then watch my video on why you shouldn't transform
your text layers. I'll place a link to it down below in the
description.
But anyway, now, lemme show you the method that gives you total control over your text
and how it wraps around the circle. Start by selecting the Path Selection tool
from the toolbar, then hover over your text. When the black arrow icon switches to a text
cursor with a right-pointing black arrow, you can click on the text to set your new
start point. Notice how the letter P moves to that area
that I clicked on. Basically, this is where your text starts.
If it doesn't work for you, then make sure that your text layer is aligned left.
The overlays that appear over your text layer are related to the alignment that you have
active. I'll talk to you more about that in a moment.
For now, let's work with the Left Align option.
You can click to set your start point, or you can also click-and-drag to adjust it within
the path. Also, notice the icon next to the letter P
as I drag. That icon indicates where the text starts.
You could also adjust the endpoint by hovering on the opposite side of the path and clicking-and-dragging.
Notice that the text cursor now has a left-pointing arrow next to it.
To make it so that the words "Photoshop training channel" only covers the top part of the circle,
I will place my starting point on the center on the left and my endpoint on the center
on the right, and it should snap right into place because I have snapping enabled.
If your text is too big or too long, it will get cut off.
To fix it, double-click on the Text Layer thumbnail to select all the text in that layer
and reduce the font size from either the Properties panel or the Options bar.
One way of doing it is by clicking inside the input box, then tapping the up or down
arrow keys on the keyboard to adjust your font size.
But instead, I prefer to simply click-and-drag left to right on the font size label.
And now that I've changed the font size, my text fits within the top half of the circle.
And the reason that you want to set your start and endpoints instead of just rotating the
layer is so that you can have total control of how the text fits within the circle.
Lemme show you what I mean by that. I'll click-and-drag on the words "training
channel" to select them, and I'll replace them with the word "tutorial".
With a shorter sentence, you will be able to see how the text reacts to the alignment
options. From the Options bar or the Properties panel
in Photoshop 2020 and newer, you will see that the Left Align button is active.
That means that the text will align to the start point, and if you switch over into the
Path Selection tool, you'll see the corresponding icon, in this case, the text cursor with the
right pointing arrow. And it only changes into the left-pointing
arrow when I move the cursor over to the endpoint. But now, if I click on the Align Right button,
you will see that the text will move to the right next to the endpoint,
and when I hover over the text, you will see the text cursor with the left-pointing arrow,
indicating the direction where the text is moving.
Only when I return to the start point will the arrow point to the right.
If I click on the Align Center button, the text centers in-between the start and endpoints,
and the text cursor will now show a double-sided arrow.
When you click-and-drag over the text, you will see the start and endpoints and also
a midpoint, which helps you visualize the center point between the start and endpoints.
And even with the text aligned to the center, I can control the start and ending points.
I'll click-and-drag on them to make sure that they're in the center where they were before.
These control points and how they interact with the alignment options is what gives you
an efficient way of controlling your text within the circle, which in my opinion, make
it a much better way to work than simply rotating a text layer.
Now, I'm going to show you how to place text on the bottom half of the circle.
The easiest way is to just duplicate this original text layer.
You can do so by pressing Ctrl J on Windows, that's Command J on the Mac, and click on
the Eye icon to hide the original text layer. Next, select the Path Selection tool from
the toolbar and click-and-drag the starting point to the opposite side here on the right.
Then, click-and-drag the endpoint to the left side.
This will place the text upside down, but you can flip it by simply clicking on either
the start or endpoint and dragging it inward. See that? Very easy to do, and actually, you
can also click-and-drag inward from the path. But sometimes, you may accidentally move the
text, and it could be a little more difficult. So, to me, it's just easier to use the start
or endpoints to drag the text inward.
Next, I'm going to change the text. I'm going to double-click on the Text Layer
thumbnail to highlight the text. With the text highlighted, I can type anything
that I want. I'll type "by Jesús Ramirez".
That's my name, of course. Next, we need to make sure that this text
layer matches the baseline of the original text layer.
I'll enable the original layer, then make sure that the layer containing the bottom
half of the circle is selected and go into the Window menu and select Character to open
the Character panel. If you're in Photoshop 2020 and newer, you
can also find these options in the Properties panel, and that's where I'll work.
Then, come into the baseline input box and change the baseline until it matches the original
text layer. An easy way to do that is to click inside
the input box and tap on the up and down arrow keys on the keyboard to adjust the baseline
until this text layer matches the original. And I'm using the path as a reference.
When they align, your design should be complete.
And the best thing about learning these techniques is you can apply 'em to any path not just
a circular one. So, that means that you can pretty much have
text follow anything. Lemme show you what I mean by that.
You can create a path of any shape with the Curvature Pen tool.
You can select it from the toolbar and click on the canvas to set your points, and you
can see the path that I'm creating. The shape doesn't matter.
Just create a path of any shape. And by the way, if you're working with a path
and it disappears, you don't see it anymore, you can always find it in the Paths panel.
You can enable it by going into Window in Paths, select it from there, and it will come
back in the Layers panel.
Next, select the Horizontal Type tool and click on the path and type anything that you
like. I'll type "Photoshop training channel on YouTube".
Notice two things. First, that the endpoint is here, which is
why we can't see all the text, so I'm going to move the endpoint all the way to the end.
The second thing you'll notice is that the text is below the line.
This is because Photoshop is using the baseline value that we set in the previous text layer,
but you can bring it back to default by typing 0 and then hitting the Enter key.
That's the Return key on the Mac.
And notice how the text follows the path. If you come across two letters that don't
look right, maybe they need more or less space in-between them, then you can click in-between
both characters and hold Alt on Windows, Option on the Mac, and tap on the left or right arrow
keys to adjust the kerning. In other words, move the characters closer
or further away from each other. You can also use this shortcut on the circular
path as well.
And let me know down in the comments below if these techniques were useful for you.
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I hope that this tutorial showed you everything that you needed to know about typing text
in a circle in Photoshop. Thank you so much for watching.
I'll talk to you again in the next Photoshop tutorial.