The Photoshop Tip of the Week for the Clients and Friends of Ben Willmore (www.digitalmastery.com):

Before we jump into this week's tips, I'd like to let you know why you haven't gotten a tip in a while. Well, the good folks over at @home.com decided it would be nice to go bankrupt and force tens of thousands of people to change their e-mail addresses. As a result, hundreds upon hundreds of people who subscribe to this tip of the week were forced to get a new e-mail address, which took a major undertaking here to search them all out and get them all changed. Thankfully, now, everything is up to date, so I can send out tips again. And now we've got things fixed up so that you can unsubscribe or change your address automatically. To do so, , please use the link that appears at the bottom of the tip of the week messages to unsubscribe or change your e-mail address, that way it won't take me any time to change things, and your tip subscription will go uninterrupted!

And now on to the tips...

We live in a world that is overflowing with words and text. They call out to us from every corner of life: television, magazines, billboards, posters! They ruthlessly compete for our attention, and designers go to great lengths to make their text as interesting as possible. So, in an effort to keep things "interesting," we're going to explore some commonly requested type effects.

Whenever you watch TV, you might notice the network's logo showing up in the lower right corner of your screen. You can always see through the logo and sometimes it only shows up on its edges. If you want to try this yourself, start by entering the text, then double-click on the name of the layer and set the Fill Opacity to zero (Photoshop 6 only). That will make the text disappear, so now you can add a layer style to make the edges show up. You can do that by choosing Layer>Layer Style>Bevel and Emboss.

Another way to make it so that your text is not intrusive to the viewer is to have just its lower right edge show up by using a drop shadow. To do that, again, double-click on the name of the Type layer and set the Fill Opacity to Zero. Then to get a drop shadow that looks right, choose Layer>Layer Style>Drop Shadow and turn on the 'Layer Knocks Out Drop Shadow' checkbox.

Now let's make one of those cheap chrome effects. Start out with some gray text, and then choose Layer>Layer Style>Bevel and Emboss. Set the Technique pop-up menu to Chisel Hard and mess with the Size setting until the bevel effect extends all the way to the center of each letter of your text. Finally, to get the metal look, click the tiny down pointing arrow that shows up next to the Glass Contour setting and choose the setting that resembles two camel's humps-that should do it!

Or, let's say you want to add a photo to your text. Well, to do that, you'll have to put a photo on a layer directly above the text (and make sure the photo layer is active), then choose layer>Group with Previous. That will make the photo only show up where the text is. You can spice up the result by clicking on the Type layer and then adding a Layer style like Bevel and Emboss or Drop Shadow.

Now, what if you don't want a simple effect applied to the text, but would rather have each letter of the text interact with each other? Start off by choosing Layer>Type>Convert to Shape. Now, switch to the Solid Arrow tool in Photoshop's tool palette. Click and drag to create a rectangle that encompasses all of the text so that it becomes selected, then click on the icon that shows up just to the left of the Combine button in the Options Bar at the top of your screen. Now everything is set up for fun, so click somewhere away from the text to deselect it and then click on the individual letters and reposition them so they overlap each other. Wherever they overlap, you should get a hole! Once you have the text looking just the way you like it, then choose Layer>Rasterize>Shape.

Ok, enough with type effects. I'll be heading to Australia and New Zealand in January. If you're interested in attending one of my seminars there (I'll be visiting seven cities), then point your browser to www.photoshoplink.com for details. Also, I just finished cleaning out my basement and whaddya know, I found a few dozen copies of my Photoshop 5.0 book.... So if you know of anyone who hasn't upgraded yet and needs a X-mas gift, then I'll sell you a signed copy for$10 plus shipping. Sorry it's too late for Christmas. Just e-mail regina@digitalmastery.com for details.

Don't forget to check out this week's Photoshop Questions of the Week at www.digitalmastery.com/questions

-Ben Willmore