Creating circular text in Photoshop or other apps 1

[scrafts]

Greetings,
I am trying to create some menu buttons for a website. As it turns out, the buttons are circular in shape. I would like to create text that will also be circular so that I can superimpose it on the buttons. I cannot seem to find a way to do this with Photoshop. There is a "warped text" feature in Photoshop 7.0, but it does not support circles. I also looked at Xara3D version 5, but I could not find a circular text function. I would be very grateful if someone either knew of a way to create circular text with one of these tools, or knew of another tool to recommend. Thanks a lot.
Steve

 

[barehug]

If you had CS you could do this easily(I jumped from 6 to CS, so I don't know v7), as it is here is a tutorial(for v5, but will work in v7) text in a circle...

http://www.grafx-design.com/16photo.html

A less precise way would be to use the warped text (Use 'Arc' - Bend = 100%) for half the text, and the same on another layer for the other half and then rotate one text layer 180 degrees and line them up.

As it's going to be on a website, exact measurement isn't necessary.

Moe: It could have been a real ugly situation, but luckily I managed to shoot him in the spine.

 

[scrafts]

Thank you very much for the reply, barehug. I do not know what CS is, so that kind of left me in the dark. However I did look at the link you sent and it does make sense. My only confusion with this method is how to determine the angle as you rotate the text. Is there an indicator in Photoshop which displays the angle or do you do a visual estimate? While I was waiting for a reply from Tek-Tips, I located another website with a similar solution to yours:

http://www.heathrowe.com/tuts/circulartext.asp

although your solution appears to be much simpler. Thanks for taking the time to answer this question. - scrafts

 

[barehug]

Photoshop CS, CS='Creative Suite', is Version 8 of Photoshop.

I haven't read thru the tutorial thoroughly, but I'm assuming that you have to transform the layer in degree increments.

When you transform a layer(CTRL+T), you will see a target shape in the center of the layer (this is the center of rotation), you can move this point to any part of the image and when you rotate the layer, it will rotate around this point.

So assign a center point (use a horizontal and a vertical guide), with 'View'>'Snap' on, the center of rotation will 'snap' onto the guides, then type in the angle at the tool option bar at the top.

Moe: It could have been a real ugly situation, but luckily I managed to shoot him in the spine.

 

[tviman]

In PS7, you can create a "half circle" of text by using the text warp tool and then selecting ARC. I guess you could do 2 halves to make a whole circle.

There's always a better way. The fun is trying to find it!

 

[barehug]

tviman,
In PS7, you can create a "half circle" of text by using the text warp tool and then selecting ARC. I guess you could do 2 halves to make a whole circle.

Great minds... eh?


Moe: It could have been a real ugly situation, but luckily I managed to shoot him in the spine.

 

[hunterjm]

FYI: CS is the newest version of Photoshop. For fun they went from Photoshop 7.0 to Photoshop CS. You can read more about it here...

http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/main.html

Also, I think an easier way for you to rotate the text 180 degrees would be for you to select the layer and then go to Edit > Transform > Rotate 180.

Also FYI: Warp text is located here... Layer > Type > Warp Text

Hope this helps!