Text in Elements - Photoshop Elements 13: The Missing Manual - page 765

4. Adjust the Tools Options settings until you like how the text looks .
Once you click the Commit icon (the green checkmark below the text) in the next
step, you won't be able to alter the text as easily as you can with the regular type
tools. That's because the regular tools create their own layers, while the Type Mask
tools just create selections. Once you commit it, the text is just like any other selec-
tion—Elements doesn't see it as text anymore, so you can no longer change its size by
highlighting it and picking a different size in the Tool Options, for example.
5. When you're happy with the selection, click the Commit checkmark .
When you click this icon, Elements turns the outline of the text into an active selec-
tion. You can move the selection's outline by nudging it with the arrow keys, and use
the Transform Selection command ( Resizing Selections ) to scoot it around in your im-
age or to resize, transform, or rotate it. (This can make the letters look a little strange,
though, so watch the effects carefully.)
6. Remove the non-text portion of the image .
Go to Select→Inverse and then press Backspace/Delete to remove the rest of the im-
age and create letters filled with the image. (If you don't perform this step, you'll just
have a text-shaped selection to admire.) Or you can copy and paste the selection into
another document.
If you want a transparent background, double-click the Background layer in the Lay-
ers panel to turn it into a regular layer before you perform this step. Otherwise, the
area outside the letters will be filled with the current background color.
Figure 14-13 shows the effect of pressing Ctrl+J/ ⌘ -J to place a type mask selection onto a
duplicate layer of its own, and then adding layer styles to the new layer.