Creating Outlined Text

Adobe PhotoShop has a command that will stroke (or outline) a selection, but PaintShop Pro does not. There is a simple way to outline any selection you want whether it is text or a shape. This tutorial uses text, but you could do the same with any selection. The second and third sections of the tutorial cover ways you can create the same effect using later versions of PaintShop Pro. Those techniques also apply to vector shapes but if you have created a raster shape, you can still use this first technique to create a raster outline to go with it.

  1. Create a new image of the size you want to use. Make sure the Image Type is 16.7 million colors. (In later versions, that would be RGB 8 bits/Channel.) The background color can be anything you want.
  2. Now type your text. It should be a fairly large, simple font so you have room to outline without making the text unreadable. Make sure that "Floating" is not checked.
  3. Save the selection to the Alpha Channel (Selections/Save to Alpha Channel...) for use later. Now expand the selection (Selections/Modify/Expand) by two or three pixels. The number of pixels by which you expand the selection will be the width of your outline.
  4. Fill the expanded selection with the color you want to use for you outline.
    5. image0501 picture
  5. Now load the original text selection from the alpha channel (Selections/Load from Alpha Channel...) and fill it with the color you want to use for your text.
    6. image0502 picture

That's it, you're done! Outlined text.

Outlined Text with PSP 6.0

By the way, if you are using PaintShop Pro version 6.0 or better, you can create outlined text even more easily!

  1. Select the text tool and click where you want to place the text.
  2. When the dialog box comes up, make sure that Vector is selected in the "Create As" section, type the text you want and click OK.
  3. Now click on the Vector Object Selection tool (it's the last one on the tool palette) and select the text by clicking on it.
  4. Right-click on the text object and select "Convert text to curves" and then either "As Single Shape" or "As Character Shapes."
  5. Right-click again and select "Properties"
  6. Now you can change the properties of the vector to Outlined & Stroked or just Stroked, if you want. You have precise control of the width of the outline and its color as well, although you need to have fairly large, bold type to be able to make the outline more than one or two pixels wide.

Here is an example of the stroked text you can create in PaintShop Pro 6.0:

By the way, the font in the example is called Dots.

Have fun! The difference between "As Single Shape" and "As Character Shapes" depends on what else you might want to do with the text. If you want to make the text follow a shape, like a curve or circle, then select "As Character Shapes" to create a separate shape for each letter. If you are only going to outline the text, select "As Single Shape."

Outlined Text with PSP 7.0 through PSP X

Things are even easier with these later versions of PSP. When you select the text tool, set the foreground to the color you want to fill the text with and the background to the color you want to use for your stroke. You will find settings for such things as stroke width and style in the toolbar.

The really neat thing about these newer versions of PaintShop Pro is that you can use and pattern or gradient on your system to fill the text and/or to outline it. Take a look at this example:

I used the Duotone Green gradient for the outline and the palest yellow in the palette for the fill. I also added a drop shadow to make the text stand out from the background a little bit more.