When you click the Text tool, hold the mouse button down for a moment and you should get 4 options: Horizontal Type, Vertical Type, Horizontal Type Mask, Vertical Type Mask in that order. If you just click the tool quickly you get the last option used, so if you made an error once, it will be permanent until you corect it with the click/hold.
This applies to all tools with multiple options.
You can tell which one is set because the tool icon changes. The Mask options have dotted outline Ts
You may need to adjust your mouse click speed/sensitivity.
Thanks for your reply, Davee.
I definitely do have the Horizontal Type option selected when the effects described in my first msg occur.
When I select the Horiz. Type Mask option, I also get the pink overlay and no new type layer, but that’s what I’m supposed to get with the Horiz. Type Mask option, isn’t it?
My problem is that I get these effects with the Horiz. Type (non-Mask) option.
I wonder if the fact that the file name ends in (Bitmap) has any relevance to this?
Yep – sure is.
I tried this on a .bmp and got the pink layer. Text could be typed and ‘took’ on pressing Enter, but the typeface was terrible.
So I looked at the mode (Image, Mode) and it was Indexed Color. I changed to RGB and the Text tool worked normally, but still had bad typeface – because of the bit structure of the .bmp. Bitmaps tend to be small physical images, unlike .jpg or .psd
So I resampled from the 72 pixels/inch of the .bmp to 300 in Image, Resize, Image Size and the type looked OK.
Save as .psd or .jpg
Just tech comment:
a .bmp file can be any file size at all.
Can be indexed, grayscale, or 24bit color. Can retain ppi info in header. Can even be bitmap. (even though the format itself was named "bitmap" by MS, "bitmap" in true graphics parlance is a raster image containing only pure black and pure white).
M
Thanks Davee & Mac.
Actually, I did not have a .bmp file. It was a .psd file in Bitmap mode. Now I’ve changed the mode to RGB the problem has gone away.
I don’t know how I started off in Bitmap mode. I scanned a B&W line image (a map, actually) into PSE and saved it as a .psd file – the Bitmap mode just appeared. Does PSE do that automatically?
No, it was your scan options I’m sure.
M
