Vector text

[smiledog]

Hello, people.

From what I understand, vector text does not pixelate when the image is expanded. If this is true, can someone point me to a tutorial on creating text?

Thanks,

Barry

[LeviFiction]

Here are two videos I did on the subject

Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBMt3zQD ... plpp_video

Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOHuBEDe ... plpp_video

Meant more for X3 and X4 but they generally work in similar ways through the different versions. The important part is the "Create As" drop down on the tool options bar. Make sure it says "Vector" to create vector text.

[df]

Hello, people.

From what I understand, vector text does not pixelate when the image is expanded. If this is true, can someone point me to a tutorial on creating text?

Thanks,

Barry

To be perfectly clear the vector text does not pixelate when the text is expanded as long as it's still a vector. If you were to save an image with vector text to a format that does not support vectors, say like a jpeg, then enlarge that file, it is no longer a vector and will pixelate along with the rest of the jpeg.

[smiledog]

Thanks, Dan/Levi

Levi, I'll check them out when I get home this afternoon. And yup, I was playing around and kinda' figured the "Create as" should be vector. I created one on an extremely high-res image (6000 ppi). Looked good until I zoomed in on it to about billboard size and then it did start to pixelate, but I don't know if that's because the monitor displays in pixels - it might print perfectly.

Dan, I can't send it to my client as a pspimage. What formats do support vectors? .gif? .bmp?

Thanks again,

Barry

[LeviFiction]

Well, first resize and zoom are different.

As you suspected the monitor shows in pixels but your image is also done in pixels. Vectors are drawn based on mathematics, PSP follows a path and renders out the text based on that. So if you resize the image so that you're actually changing how many pixels are inside the image itself the text will not pixelate because it will simply be redrawn. In fact at larger sizes the text will appear smoother.

When you zoom in you aren't increasing or decreasing the pixels, you're simply changing how many physical screen pixels are being used to display the image pixels. Because of this the vector is not being redrawn and will appear to pixelate. Dedicated vector programs probably won't show this as they'll redraw the vector as you zoom in but PSP is a raster editor with vector tools on top.

When you print you'll be printing at size so you shouldn't have to worry about that.

bmp, jpg, png, tiff, gif are all raster (bitmap) formats the do not support vectors. But I don't think you want to give your client a vector file anyway, no the important thing is you keep a file with the original vectors in case you want something changed.

To save vectors you need to save them as PSPImage or one of the supported vector formats (EMF or WMF) but PSPImage is the best container for PSP vectors. Especially if you have regular raster(bitmap) content included. Technically EMF and WMF support bitmap graphics I just don't know if PSP supports saving them with bitmap graphics and they aren't really standard.

So what you need to do is save the original project as a PSPImage, and when you send the result to your client, save and send a copy as a jpg or bmp or png.

If you want to work specifically in vectors and save out vector formats I will have to recommend a dedicated vector editor like Inkscape, Xara, CorelDraw, Illustrator, or the like.

[smiledog]

Thanks, Levi - that's what I suspected re: the pixelization (pixelizing, pixdlosity, pixeltudinisity?)

"When you print you'll be printing at size so you shouldn't have to worry about that."

In other works, I should create the image at approximately the size it will be printed.

Thanks again,

Barry