From the Manual

Add Word Art to a Template

• Open a template (File > New).
• Open a word art.
• Get the Move tool.
• Click and drag the word art onto the template.
• In the Layers panel, click and drag the word art layer to the top of the layers.

Rotate the Word Art

• Press Ctrl T (Mac: Cmd T) to get the Transform options.
• On the document, hover your cursor near a corner handle of the bounding box and click and drag with the Shift key held down.
• To reposition the word art, click and drag inside the bounding box.

Make the Word Art Smaller

• Press Ctrl T (Mac: Cmd T) to get the Transform options.
• Click and drag on a corner handle of the bounding box.
• To reposition the word art, click and drag inside the bounding box.
• With the Move tool active, use your keyboard arrow keys to fine-tune the position.

Recolor the Word Art

• Click on the Foreground Color chip to open the Color Picker.
• In the dialog box, choose a color and click OK.
• In the Layers panel, click on the word art layer to make sure it’s the active layer.
• Press Shift Alt Backspace (Mac: Shift Opt Delete) to fill the word art with the new color.

Add Words to the Word Art

• Press the letter D to reset the Color Chips.
• Get the Type tool.
• In the Tool Options, open the Font Picker and choose a coordinating font.
• Set the Size to 10 pt, the Leading to Auto, the Tracking to 0, and the Alignment to Left.
• On the document, hold down the Shift key and click to place the cursor.
• Type a word and click the checkmark to commit.
• In the Tool Options, adjust the Size and Tracking as needed.
• Using the Move tool, click and drag directly on the word to reposition it.
• Holding down the Alt key (Mac: Opt key), click and drag directly on the word to duplicate it.
• In the Layers panel, double click on the thumbnail of the type layer to highlight the word.
• Type a new word and click the checkmark to commit.

Disassemble the Word Art

• In the Layers panel, click on the word art layer to make sure it’s the active layer.
• Get the Lasso tool.
• In the Tool Options, click on the New Selection icon and set the Feather to 0 px. Anti-aliasing can be checked.
• On the document, click and drag a selection outline around the part of the word art that you would like to remove.
• To delete the selected pixels, press the Backspace key (Mac: Delete key).
• To hide the selected pixels, in the Layers panel hold down the Alt key (Mac: Opt key) and click on the Add Layer Mask icon.

Blend Word Art with a Photo

• In the Layers panel, click on the word art layer to make sure it’s the active layer.
• Get the Move tool.
• On the document, click directly on the word art and drag it overtop of a photo.
• In the Layers panel, lower the Opacity of the word art layer.
• To fill the word art with the Background Color Chip, press Shift Ctrl Backspace (Mac: Shift Cmd Delete).

Clip Word Art to a Photo

• In the Layers panel, position the word art layer directly above a clipped photo layer.
• In the Menu Bar, choose Layer > Create Clipping Mask.

Combine Word Art

• In the Layers panel, click on the word art layer to make sure it’s the active layer.
• Fill the word art with black and set the Opacity to 100%.
• Open another word art.
• Get the Move tool.
• Click and drag the new word art overtop the first one.
• Resize and reposition as needed.
• In the Layers panel, lower the Opacity of the new word art layer. 

From the Transcript

On the downloads page for this class, you will find a set of word art appropriate for travel and many other kinds of themed photo books. In this video, I’ll show you seven ways you can add the travel word art to the travel templates. To begin working with the Travel word art, the first thing you’ll need to do is to open a template. I am working on a copy of this template in expert mode in Photoshop Elements, but these instructions also work for Photoshop. I’ll begin in the Layers panel by clicking on the Background layer to activate it, then I’ll open a word art, and with the Move tool, click and drag the word art onto the template.

You can see that the word art landed below the photo masks, which is exactly what you want if you want the word art to peek out from behind the photos. But if you want the word art to be on top of the photos, then you’ll need to click and drag the word art layer all the way to the top of the Layers panel.

When adding word art to the templates, don’t forget that you do have choices on the orientation of the word art. If I press Ctrl T, Cmd T on a Mac, to get the Transform options, and then hover my cursor near a corner handle of the bounding box, and click and drag with the Shift key held down. I can put that in a vertical position instead of horizontal, then I can click and drag inside the bounding box to reposition and that would place the word art right about there. But I’m going to go ahead and undo that, and this time I’m going to put the word art up here right above the journal lines. To do that, I’m going to have to make it a lot smaller so I’ll press Ctrl T, Cmd T on a Mac, again to get the Transform options. And then clicking and dragging from the corner handle of the bounding box, drag inward to resize.

Click inside the bounding box to move the word art around. To finetune the position, use your keyboard arrow keys and you can nudge that into place. Then I’ll click the checkmark to commit. Next, I’m going to zoom into this area so I’ll press the letter Z to get the Zoom tool, and then click and drag to zoom into this area right here.

My first tip for you is that you can recolor the word art. To do that click on the Foreground Color chip to open the Color Picker. Then in the Color Picker, choose a color. In this case, I’ll just choose a red and click OK. Now, with that word art layer as the active layer, press Shift Alt Backspace in Windows or Shift Opt Delete on a Mac to fill the word art with the new color. If you don’t like the new color, go ahead and press Ctrl Z, Cmd Z on a Mac.

My next tip is that you can add words to the word art. To do that, first I’ll press the letter D to reset the Color Chips to the default of black over white. Then, I’ll press the letter T to get the Type tool. In the Tool Options, open the Font Picker and choose a font. When working with script word art, the best kind of font to pair with is a san serif font. So, I’m going to go down here and choose Orator. My Size is set to 10 points. The Tracking right now is set to 0, and my Alignment, I’ll choose Left. Then on the document, click to place the cursor.

If you have more than one font on the document, it is good practice to hold down the Shift key before you click, and that way it won’t interfere with the other fonts. Now I’ll type out a word and click OK. Back in the Tool Options of the Type tool, I’m going to raise the size of this font to probably around 15, and then I’m also going to up the Tracking just a little bit. Then I’ll press the letter V to get the Move tool and on the document click on that word and drag it right down here into place.

Now I want to duplicate the word, so I’ll hold down the Alt key in Windows or the Opt key on a Mac, and drag straight over to the right. Now I’m going to change this word, so I’ll double-click on the thumbnail of that type layer, enter a new word, and click the checkmark to commit.

My next tip for word art is that you can disassemble the word art. I’m going to drag these two to the Trash, and my adventure layer is still active in the Layers panel. Then, get the Lasso tool. It’s nested with the Polygonal Lasso tool. In the Tool Options, click on the New Selection icon and set the Feather to 0 pixels. Anti-aliasing can be checked. On the document, click and drag a selection outline around the part of the word art that you would like to remove. When you let go of the mouse, the selection will close. Then you can press the Backspace key in Windows or Delete key on a Mac, or you can hold down the Alt key in Windows, Opt key on a Mac, and click on the Add Layer Mask icon.

The next tip is that you can use the word art to blend into a photo. So with the Move tool, if I have the Adventure layer active in the Layers panel, I can click on the word art and drag it over top of a photo. This technique will usually work best if you have the Opacity lowered just a little bit on the word art, so about 70%. If it’s a little too dark, try filling the word art with white. Right now, the Background Color chip is white, so I can press Shift Ctrl Backspace in Windows, Shift Cmd Delete on a Mac, to fill the word art with white, and you can really see what a difference that makes.

I’ll undo that, because the next tip is that if you want the word art to only show up on that photo mask, then drag the word art layer above the photo layer. Then in the Menu Bar, choose Layer > Create Clipping Mask.

Again, I’ll undo that, because my next tip is showing you that you can use the word art with other word art in the package. First, I’ll set the Opacity of this Layer, back to 100% and then I’m going to delete the layer mask. Now I have another word art open. So using the Move tool, I’m going to click and drag that onto my template. It also will need to be resized. So, I’ll get the Transform options and click and drag. Then click and drag inside to move it.

When combining word art, it’s often best to have the word art in two different colors. So if I wanted to leave one of these word art as black, I would probably change the other one to gray. But another thing you can do is to choose one of the word art and lower the Opacity of it way down. That way, they look stacked, yet they still create one meaningful phrase. So, those are some helpful tips for adding word art to the Travel templates.