What colors in your printer, when mixed together or as individuals, would you say make up the color white?
You can’t print white except on a laser-style color printer that specifically has a white.
Are you printing the photo itself from Photshop or are you printing on an existing photo?
Good point Ed. That didn’t occur to me.
As already pointed out, no software, whether it’s Photoshop or anything else, can make a normal printer print white.
You must scan the photograph in as a digital image, then superimpose white text on that in Photoshop (or one of a dozen other image manipulation programs).
Then, when you print it, the white areas of the text will be white (if the paper is white!).
I thought I was clear. But I will try to explain better.
I uploaded an image in Photo Shop, cropped out the image in order to leave a template to type in text, then typed white text onto it with black or grey background, and then printed it directly onto an existing photo that I place into my printer and printed onto it via Photoshop and via Windows Photo Printing Wizard. As I said, it printed the white text onto the existing photo fine, but when the white text hit a really dark place on the photo, you couldn’t see the text. You could only see the white text in light areas of the existing photo that I printed on.
This makes about zero sense to me.
Can anyone else figure out what WhiteText is trying to do or explain?
No. But it would sure help to see it.
Bob
Does your printer have white ink in it?
Ed has hit the nail on the head.
WhiteText is trying to print onto media that already has an image printed on it. Unfortunately, printers don’t have white ink, and simply print nothing where the printing image has white, as it assumes that you are using white or otherwise blank media. As WhiteText’s media already has an image on it, this doesn’t work.
WhiteText should try using a light colour, like yellow, which will show up when printed on an existing image.
Or do what I said five posts ago.
As I said, it printed the white text onto the existing photo fine,
Do you have a printer that has white ink? Perhaps a laser or dye sub with a white cartridge?
You’re chasing your tail unless you grasp this fundamental point.
Klaas Visser,
I tried several light colors and the same thing happened. At least you got the idea of what I am trying to do. And, no, my printer does not have white ink. But that is not the issue here. As I said, the white text is printing fine onto the existing image (photograph that I place in the printer so I can print my "white text" onto it.)
Again, the text is printing in light areas of my photo but not dark areas of the photo.
You’re getting close though, I can feel it. Any other ideas?
Thank you
Like everyone has written here, you can’t print white on a dark area without white ink. It could only show up on the lighter areas of your existing image if you are using a background or line you’re creating around it.
Let me try to be clearer – you are not printing white text, you are printing transparent text.
Anything you print on top of your existing picture will be affected by the colours of the existing picture, particularly if what you are printing is light coloured.
Imagine you have a dark blue wall, and you paint some light grey on it. The dark blue will show through the grey.
If you truly want 100% white text, then the only way to do that is to scan the original photo in, add the text required, and reprint the photo.
Anything that you designate as "white" in photoshop, prints transparent.
If you don’t want to believe us all, fine. You have a fundamental misunderstanding of what is happening, and until you grasp it, you will chase your tail.
Take a piece of colored paper and put it in your printer. Now try to print white text to it, with ANY program. G’head, try it. It won’t print white text on colored papter.
Not to beat a dead horse, but look at any printed material that has white text. You should notice that what appears as white is the paper color showing through. No combination of inks will produce white. It is the absence of ink in the "white" areas.
Technically speaking he is not printing the white text, he is printing the gray around it.
Well, let’s qualify the print aspect and say we’re talking about inkjets unless information comes to light that is contrary.
Miscommunication here.
I would like to send an example to someone via email. It would clear everything up.
As I thought I stated before, I opened a dark image, found on my PC, into Photo Shop CS2 Trial Version, cropped it so the only thing left was a dark image that I could type white text (words) onto, and then tried to print it onto a dark existing photo. So, I had white text on black background to start with, black background being the important factor here, I tried a grey background also) When I printed it onto the existing photo, that is where the white text with black or grey background appears only in the light colored areas on the existing photo.
If it is still unclear, can I email my examples to someone please?
Thank you for your time
You are NOT printing white text.
Create a document in Photoshop with white text on a dark background. When you print it onto white paper on a desktop printer, the ink heads spray dark ink onto the paper to print the dark background areas. Where the white lettering is, NO ink is sprayed. The white lettering is actually the white base of the paper showing through the gaps.
Print that same document onto your existing photograph and the dark background will only serve to further darken the original image.
Because NO ink is sprayed on the areas representing the white lettering, the original photo will remain UNALTERED in these areas.
The fact you are seeing the lettering show up (of sorts) on lighter parts of your photograph in due only to the fact your second document is further darkening the areas around the letters.
Bottom line:
You don’t PRINT white.
You print everything that is NOT white.
(Unless you use a spot color on an offset press, or jump through another particular hoop with a laser print overlay, but it’s clear you’re not doing anything of the sort.)
Post your examples to a web location and tell us the link. We’ll download and take a look.
But consider this,
Almost every post in this 22 post thread has said that you are not printing white. Now, you are either phrasing it wrong, or you just do not get it that you cannot print white.
I don’t care what you think you are seeing, you do not print white. We’re not smokin’ dope here, we’re all telling you that you are not printing white.
"The soundest reasoning leads to the wrongest conclusions when the premises are false"
If you follow my earlier example, you will see, Sam I Am, that if you put colored paper in your printer, and try to print whte text on it, it will not print white on that background.
Just do what I said in Post #4!
You must scan the photograph in as a digital image, then superimpose white text on that in Photoshop (or one of a dozen other image manipulation programs).
Then, when you print it, the white areas of the text will be white (if the paper is white!).
Go to this page
<
http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.vi ewPicture&friendID=96422712>
to see the pictures I am telling you about. When you get there, scroll to the bottom and the last two pictures are labeled "Photo Shop Tech to look at"
The small pic, with the strip of black background with white text typed onto it, is what I made in Photo Shop. The second photo with the drummer is the existing photo that I printed the strip onto. In the drummer picture, look at the top left of the symbols in the light area and you will see the words Dark Life, and to the right of the symbol are words from the other side of the strip. In the symbol area itself the text is not visible.
Now, can you tell me what I need to do get all of the text on that strip to show up on the existing picture?
Keep in mind, I am not a novice to computers. But, the portion of my brain that should be processing how to perform this simple task was not developed when I was born, as neither was the math portion or car mechanics portion of my brain. LOL, but true. So I really don’t want to know the mechanics of how this is done, I would just appreciate someone telling me exactly what to do here.
Thank you
Rebuild the entire image in Photoshop, then print it onto a fresh sheet of paper.
Open the picture of the Drummer in Photoshop. (You DO have the original version of that image, right? Hopefully larger in pixel dimensions, and without all the compression artifacts…)
Do some color correction if there’s sufficient data in the original image to allow it. (because the current image on your MySpace page is horrible.)
Compose your text layers using white.
Add a Layer Style of Stroke. Choose Black for the color, 1 pixel for stroke weight, and "Outside" for method.
Quick result (because I’m done trying to help here):
I would just appreciate someone telling me exactly what to do here.
Certainly.
Read posts #1, 2, 4, 8, 11, 14, 16, 17, 21, 22, 23, 24!!
"Read posts #1, 2, 4, 8, 11, 14, 16, 17, 21, 22, 23, 24!!"
Umm…and #26.
XD
Umm…and #26
Hey Phos. Don’t get upset.
Your’s was the "crowning glory". It’s just that it came after WT had said "I’d appreciate…" etc.
🙂
Then there’s the problem that these web-optimized images aren’t really the sort of files that will produce a good looking printed image.
So I hope you DO have a high resolution version of the original photo to work with.
I’ll explain it this way. The inks in your printer are like a marker. You made white text with black around it and printed it right over top of a sheet of paper that was not white, but had something already printed on it. If you took that photo, and used a black marker, you could draw black outlines in the shape of the letters over the light areas of the photo and see the letters. Now take that same black marker and try to draw the text over the dark parts of the photo. It doesn’t work, because you only have a black marker. In the same way, your printer can only put colours down on the paper, and the only thing that’s white is the paper itself.
Good clear explanation Peter.
You may, however, need to borrow my brick wall from post #27
I wouldn’t hold your breath waiting for a "Eureka!"
I think we a’skeered her off.
🙂
Her? How’d you work that out?
Elementary, my dear Watson.Digital
