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Photoshop Text Effects Tutorial: Excluded Type

Exclude Overlapping Letter AreasTo Create A Cool Effect

In this Photoshop tutorial, we're going to convert our type to a shape and use the "Exclude overlapping shape areas" option to create a cool text effect.

Step 1: Create A New Document

First, create a new Photoshop document, either from the File Menu or by using the keyboard shortcut "Ctrl+N" (Win) or "Command+N" (Mac). You can make it any size you like. I'll use 500x500 pixels.

Step 2: Add Your Text

Next, select the Horizontal Type Tool from the Tools palette, or press the letter "T" on your keyboard to access it quickly. We'll need a nice, thick font for this effect, so I'll use Arial Black. Feel free to use any font you like, but try to pick one with thick letters.

With my Type Tool selected and my font chosen, I'll type out my word, "PHOTOSHOP", in all capital letters, again to maximize the effect.

With the Horizontal Type Tool and a thick font selected, add your type to the document.

Step 3: Convert The Type To A Shape

Now that we have our type, we need to convert it from type to a shape so that we can access options which are not available while it's still type.

With your Type Tool still selected, right-click (Win) or Command-click (Mac) anywhere inside your document. This will bring up a menu of options. One of the options is "Convert To Shape". Click on it to select it. This will convert the letters in our type to vector shapes and give us access to options which are only available with shapes.

Adobe Photoshop Text Effects: Photoshop text effect tutorial: Selecting 'Convert To Shape'

With the Type Tool still selected, right click (Win) or Command-click (Mac) to access a sub menu of options, and choose "Convert to shape" from the list.

Once you've converted your type to a shape, you'll see the type layer in the Layers palette has how changed to a shape layer. The text is no longer text, it's now a series of vector shapes that just happen to look like letters.

Step 4: Select The Path Selection Tool And Select All The Letters

Press "A" on your keyboard to select the Path Selection Tool, or click on it in the Tools palette to select it.

Adobe Photoshop Text Effects: Select the Path Selection Tool

Select the Path Selection Tool from the Tools palette, or press "A" for the keyboard shortcut.

With the Path Selection Tool selected, click and drag a selection around all the letters to select them all at once.

Adobe Photoshop Text Effects: Drag around all the letters with the Path Selection Tool to select them all at once

With the Path Selection Tool selected, drag a selection around all the letters to select them all at once.

Step 5: Choose "Exclude Overlapping Shape Areas" From The Options Bar

With our letters all selected at once and the Path Selection Tool still active, go up to the options bar at the top of the screen and click on the "Exclude Overlapping Shape Areas" options, as shown below:

Adobe Photoshop Text Effects: The 'Exclude Overlapping Shape Areas' option in the Options Bar

Click on the "Exclude Overlapping Shape Areas" option in the Options Bar.

In a moment, we're going to move all the letters so close to each other that part of them overlap, and this option will hide all the overlapping areas from view.

Step 6: Select Each Letter Individually And Overlap It With The Letter Beside It

Next, we need to move each letter to the left so that parts of it overlap with the letter beside it. As soon as you move part of a letter overtop of another letter, you'll see the areas that overlap disappear.

First, we need to deselect all the letters, otherwise we'll move them all at once instead of moving each one individually. To quickly deselect them all, click anywhere inside the document.

Now with all the letters deselected, click on the second letter from the left and drag it until parts of it are overlapping with the first letter. As soon as you overlap the two letters, you'll see the area that overlaps disappear from view.

Click on the second letter from the left and drag it over top of the first letter so parts of both letters overlap. The overlapping area disappears.

Continue dragging each individual letter and overlapping part of it with the letter beside it until you reach the end.

To add to the effect even further, move some of the letters slightly higher or lower than the letter beside it, to give it more of a crazy, random look.

You can also rotate some of the letters if you choose by pressing "Ctrl+T" (Win) or "Command+T" (Mac) to bring up the Free Transform handles around the letter and then dragging your mouse left or right to rotate it. Press Enter (Win) or Return (Mac) to apply the rotation.

Your final result should look something like this:

The final result after overlapping all the letters and using the Free Transform command to rotate some of the letters slightly.

Step 7: Add A Drop Shadow

This last step is completely optional but it does add a bit of a finishing touch to the text.

Click on the Layer Style icon at the bottom of the Layers palette, and select "Drop Shadow" from the list.

Adobe Photoshop Text Effects: Selecting 'Drop Shadow' from the list of Layer Styles

Click on the Layer Style button on the bottom of the Layers palette and select "Drop Shadow".

When the Drop Shadow dialog box pops up, simply click OK to select the default drop shadow.

Here's my final result with the drop shadow applied:

The final result with the drop shadow applied.

And that's our look at how to create an "excluded type" text effect in Photoshop.