573 Stitching the letters in a script font

- [Narrator] In this movie, I'll show you how to stitch a script font. And notice, if I go ahead and zoom in here, that unlike the text from the previous movie, I'm not just stitching around the letters. I'm stitching inside of them as well. Alright, I'll go ahead and switch over to that file from the previous movie. And notice this layer right here called Edwardian Script. I'll go ahead and turn it on, and it is indeed text that's been set in a font called Edwardian Script. But just in case that font isn't on your system, I've converted it to a vector-based shape layer.

And regardless of what font you're using, you should do so as well by selecting that text layer and then going up to the Type menu and choosing Convert to Shape. In my case, the command is dimmed because I've already done that in advance. Alright, the next step is to go up to the Window menu and choose the Paths command in order to bring up the paths panel. And then, let's make a copy of what is ultimately the path outlines associated with this shape layer by dragging and dropping the selected item onto the little page icon at the bottom of the panel.

Now let's go ahead and rename this new path. Let's say Cursive this time around. And then, just to make things a little less confusing, let's switch back to the Layers panel, turn off that Edwardian script layer, and let's create a new layer by pressing Control + Shift + N or Command + Shift + N on the Mac. And I'm going to call this guy "script stitch," let's say. And then click OK. Alright, now go ahead and switch to the brush tool. And then confirm that your foreground color is white. If it's not, press the D key to reinstate the default colors and then press the X key to swap them.

Then go up to the Window menu and choose the Brush command in order to bring up the brush panel. Click on Brush Tip Shape over here on the top of the left-hand list. And make sure that the angle value is still set to 90 degrees, the roundness is 12%, the hardness is 80%. But this time around, we're going to take the size value down to just 12 pixels. And then we want to take the spacing value up to a whopping 300% so that we have a little bit of space between our threads.

Then click on Shape Dynamics. Drop down to this Angle Area. Make sure the Angle Jitter is set to 3% and that Control is set to Direction. Alright, now we want to switch back to the paths panel. And then, drop down to the little stroke icon at the bottom of the panel and click on it in order to stroke those path outlines like so. Alright, that takes care of the outline of the letters quite nicely, but we need to fill in the interiors as well. And we're going to do that by converting the path to a selection outline.

So go ahead and press the Control key or the Command key on the Mac and click on the thumbnail for this Cursive path. And then, go up to the Select menu, choose Modify, and choose Contract. And I found that a Contract By value of four pixels worked quite nicely where this specific text is concerned. And to show you what I mean, I'll click OK. And notice now that the marching ants scoot inward. Alright, now we want to stroke that selection with the brush, and to do that, we have to convert the selection back to a path outline which you can do by clicking on this little icon here that reads Make work path from selection.

And notice, when you click on it, you create a work path, then double-click on it in order to bring up the Save Path dialog box. And I'll name this guy "contract 4px" just so I remember what I did, and I'll click OK. Alright, now we need to stroke it as well using that same brush. So make sure the brush tool is selected here inside the brush panel. And then, drop down to the little stroke icon at the bottom of the panel and click on it, and that will fill in those letters like so. Alright, now I want to hide the path, and you do that by clicking in an empty area below all the paths here inside the paths panel.

Then switch back to the layers panel and let's duplicate all of those effects that we assigned to the stitching layer back in the previous movie by pressing the Alt key or the Option key on a Mac and dragging either the word Effects or the effects icon, either one is going to work. And notice, because the Alt or Option key is down, you'll see that double arrowhead cursor which tells you that as soon as you release, you're going to duplicate all of those effects. Now the bevel and emboss effect is fine as is, but I'm going to modify the first drop shadow by double-clicking on it which brings up the Layer Style dialog box.

I'm looking for a blend mode of Multiply. Black is fine. I'm going to crank the opacity value up to 100%. We still want Use Global Light turned off along with an angle of 40 degrees. Then I'm going to tab down to the distance value, take it down to 10 pixels, leave the spread set to five percent, and then take the size value down to five pixels like so. Then, if you're working inside Photoshop CC, go ahead and drag down the list and click on the second occurrence of drop shadow. If you have a third or a fourth, they should be turned off.

And again, blend mode is set to multiply. The color is black. This time we want an opacity value of 50%. Global light should be turned off this time around. And then, go ahead and change the angle value to -60 like so. We're looking for a distance value of just eight pixels. A spread of zero is fine. And I'll take the size value up to four pixels. And then I'll click OK in order to accept those effects. And so, here's the difference.

This is before we modified the drop shadows. Obviously, they're way too heavy. And this is after. Alright, that takes care of it, friends. I'm going to press the M key to switch back to the rectangular marquee tool just so I don't accidentally paint some more on this layer. And then I'll press Shift + F to switch to the full screen mode and I'll press Control + zero or Command + zero on the Mac to center my zoom. And that's how you assign some very fine and accurate stitching to any script font that you like here inside Photoshop.