Creating Type Outlines in Photoshop

In addition to its Vertical and Horizontal Type tools. Photoshop includes Vertical and Horizontal Type Mask tools. These function almost identically to their conventional counterparts, with one important exception: Type mask tools don’t create a new layer. Instead, they create a selection within the currently active layer. You can treat the selections created with the type mask tools just as you can any other selection. Try the following:
- Move type mask selections around your document when any of the selection tools are active.
- Store type selections as alpha channels by using the Select➪Save Selection command.
- Skew type selections (or change them in some other way) by using the Select➪Transform command.
- Convert a selection into an editable path.
- Use the selection to cut or copy portions of an image in text-shaped chunks.

You can find out how this last suggestion works by following the steps in the Putting-It-Together project at the end of this chapter, in which you find out how to literally carve your words in stone.