Are you looking to make a great title slide for your next slideshow? Or perhaps a great banner image for a blog post? Photoshop has a powerful text engine that can really manipulate your text but if you really want to change your font and make it look unique, then Photoshop Shapes are your new best friend.

Adding Text

In this example Im using the image Cheering crowd at concert – File: #58758282 | Author: erika8213 from Fotolia and Ive chosen Impact Regular as my font.

Nothing special at this point, Ive typed in the text as i normally would.

Spell Check

After this step the text will be non editable, so its a good time to check your spelling. OK, my examples pretty simple but if you were doing lot more text its worth running.

Spell Check has been hiding in Photoshop for some time. You might expect to find it under the dedicated Type menu in later versions of Photoshop, but its stayed in its original home of the Edit menu;

Text to Shape

From the Type menu choose the Convert to Shape command;

The icon in the Layers menu changes to a Shape Layer;

You may also see the path around the text;

Manipulation the Shape

Theres two main tools I can use here, the Path Selection tool and the Direct Selection tool.

Path Selection Tool

With the Path Selection tool I can click in any of the letters and its path is selected as a whole. This allows me to reposition the letter, or even to Transform (Cmd+t on a Mac, Ctrl+t on a PC) it.

Direct Selection Tool

The Direct Selection tool works a little differently. Clicking on the letter will show the path and handles (Photoshop CC and later). I can then draw a marquee around the anchor points I want to change. Im going to make the L longer, so Ill select the lower part of it;

I can then drag these points down to where I need them. Ill hold Shift while I do this to constrain it to a straight down movement, once I release the mouse the shapes filled;

I can continue to do this to my hearts content;

Its A Layer Like Any Other

Although Ive been manipulating letters, even single anchor points for this shape Photoshop keeps it as single shape layer. This means that I can now run Layer Styles, Blending Modes and anything else Id like to!