Photoshop Question re: fills/strokes

Factual Questions
1

I am using Photoshop CS2. I need to know how to either set the foreground/background to null or how to remove the fill or stroke from a shape or text.

When creating text, shapes, or using the pen tool, I always get a fill color as I go, which is especially annoying when tracing something with the pen tool. I need to be able to make things that are only outlines, or only fills… etc… I don’t have this problem using Photoshop CS at school, and I know how to do it in Paint Shop Pro… I looked through the Photoshop CS2 help and it told me to use the Paths palette to choose the path and then use the fill/stroke buttons at the bottom. Problem is, they’re greyed out no matter what I do, what I select, what layer I’m on in the layers palette, etc.

I’m sure this is VERY simple and I’m overlooking the obvious. Well, the ultra-obvious was the [/] option in the graphic style palette…but that didn’t do anything.
Heeeeelp?

2

When you select the pen tool, you should be able to select from 3 “pen modes” in the top horizontal toolbar. You’ll see them all together at the top.

• The first button is the “Shape Layers” mode and when selected, it will cause any new shapes drawn with the pen tool to automatically create a Shape Layer in the layers palette. The Shape Layer will take on the foreground color as the Fill Color, and as you draw, you will see it fill in from end point to end point. I don’t use this mode much, and find it annoying actually. I think what you are looking for is the center mode button…

• “Paths”. When you use this mode, it will now make the pen tool create a new path in the paths palette. As you draw, you won’t get any fills, and it won’t create any layers in the layer palette. But when you’re done drawing the path, you’ll notice it says “Work Path” in the path palette. Always be sure to double click the path, to permanently save it, otherwise, the next path you draw will over-right the previous work path.

From there you can create a selection from the path (by clicking the “load path as selection” button at the bottom of the palette) and fill it or stroke it with what ever color you want. Be sure to create a new blank layer first before you do this.

Does that help?

3

Yikes. Did I say over-RIGHT? I mean: over-WRITE. :smack:

4

I will give that a try! Thanks! (now how do you remove the fill from text?)

5

If you’re talking about text created with the Text tool, and it’s on a layer of it’s own (that is to say, unflattened)… then simply move your mouse over to the Layer palette, and set the Fill for that particular layer to 0%. It’s the slider right under the Opacity slider. If this is not the case, then I think things are gonna get complicated… but not impossible.

6

Aha! I think it’s silly that Photoshop has like nine different places/ways to fill.

7

I know it. It’s either redundant, or just very subtle differences. In the case of Opacity vs. Fill, here’s how I’ve come to understand it:

Opacity = This is like your Master Volume. Say you had a layer that has a red circle with a white stroke and a blue drop shadow (applied using Layer Styles). Adjusting the opacity slider will fade all of these qualities, as a whole.

Fill = This will only adjust the red fill of the circle, so that the white stroke and blue drop shadow will remain. There’s also some other idiosyncratic stuff involved with fill (like getting better results when using boolean layer modes such as Color Dodge, Overlay, Hard Light, etc.) but I shant get into that here.

8

If all you want is the outline of text then there are a few ways to accomplish this.

  1. Lay your text down in the desired font. It will automatically be created on its own layer.
  2. Right-click on the text layer you just created and select “Rasterize”
  3. Hold CTRL while you click on the thumbnail of the rasterized text layer to select its outline.
  4. Click on the “Layer” menu, select “Modify” and then “Shrink” and shrink the selection by 2 pixels.
  5. Use CTRL-X to CUT the middle out of the layer, leaving you with just the outline.

Alternately:

  1. Lay your text down in the desired font. It will automatically be created on its own layer.
  2. Hold CTRL while you click on the thumbnail of the rasterized text layer to select its outline.
  3. Click on the LAYER menu, followed by “Create new layer”
  4. If desired, move the outline to wherever you want it to be.
  5. Select the “Image” menu followed by “Stroke.” Set the stroke weight to however many pixels you want the outline to be.

You can delete the filled text layer if you prefer.

9

Thanks, but that is the “workaround” kind of way that I’ve been doing it already. There has to be a “real” way, doesn’t there? One that doesn’t require rasterizing the text? I mean hell if PAINT SHOP PRO can do it, Photoshop’s got to, right? Right??

10

Right-click on the text icon to bring up its flyout tool. I believe there is an outline text type tool in there. (Been a while so this may be an earlier version tool or something)

11

Right-click on the text icon to bring up its flyout menu. I believe there is an outline text type tool in there. (Been a while so this may be an earlier version tool or something)