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Laurie McCanna's Photoshop Tip #33

Create Bold Text in Photoshop 5

Although Adobe brought many improvements to Photoshop 5, one of the main complaints is that you can no longer create bold or italic text from the Text dialog box without having the bold or italic version of a font installed.. This tutorial remedies this with a simple way to create a bold font without needing to have the bold version of a font installed.

1. In Photoshop, select File/New. Create your text using the Type tool. Right Mouse click (Windows) or Control+ Mouse Click (Mac) and select Render Text.

Bold text examples in Photoshop 5
2. Make sure that your foreground color is the same as your type color. Select Edit/Stroke, and use a Width of one pixel and a setting of Center (as seen in the second example, above).

To achieve a bolder look, create the text but adjust the tracking in the text dialog box in order to give a little extra space between the letters. Then apply Edit/Stroke, and use a Width of two pixels and a setting of Outside (as seen in the third "Bolder Text" example, above).

using the stroke tool in Photoshop 5

3. Select Image/Mode/Indexed and save this as a gif file if you'll be using this for the web.

Remember, even though this technique is demonstrated with type, you could also use this effect on clip art, line art, or a logo.

What is the typeface used for the title graphic? It's called Caflisch Script Web, and it's available from Adobe or ImageClub.

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